This article by Altair is the first part of an essay originally posted on http://www.thelightitself.com that explores the relationship between Theravada Buddhist meditation and Thelema, the religion of Aleister Crowley. It attempts to bridge the two traditions and reveals their similarities. It proposes a clear correspondence between the concepts exposed by Thelema in Buddhist terms so that Thelemites can explore the Concentration and Insight Meditation of the Theravada tradition.

Part 1 focuses on introducing the themes explored in the essay and takes us in a first foray into Concentration Meditation.

Preface

Aleister Crowley was harsh on Buddhism as shown in the quote above. In fairness, we must bear in mind that he mostly criticized Buddhism on the ground of its Morality system. Practical methods from that tradition, on another hand, were included in the teaching of Thelema. We will explore some of them in the current essay. However, Aleister Crowley favored Yoga and most of the meditation exercises presented in Thelema are coming from Yogic traditions. It must be said that Buddhism has some advantages over Yoga, the foremost of which is the addition of Insight Meditation. Also, it is an open religion and its practice is available to everyone. Thanks to that openness, the teaching has been improved by many great masters over the years. Another way Buddhists outweigh yogis is they are expert phenomenologists, as a direct product of Insight Meditation. The greatest masters, following the guidance of the Buddha, have studied their experience in minute detail and consigned it in their teaching giving us an invaluable map for the Great Work.

The intention behind the current essay is to break the ice and build bridges between Thelema and Buddhism. Of the many branches of Buddhism, we will mostly be concerned with Theravada. Thelema includes practices from Yoga and Buddhism. Both doctrines use their own terms, sometimes overlapping, sometimes contradicting one another, but the methods look alike more than they differ. The aim of the current publication is to connect the dots. It must be borne in mind that this essay is theoretical. It won’t offer practical meditation exercises. That being said, it is written with the intention of guiding the practice, by decrypting the stages and aspects of Concentration and Insight meditation from a Theravada Buddhist perspective. The essay attempts to translate Crowley’s terms, which unfortunately are sometimes vague, into Buddhist terms, making possible the research into the Buddhist view on these topics. The reader will find occasional criticism of Crowley’s teaching which I hope will be excused. The intention is only to suggest humble improvements in the methods of Thelema. It might come at a surprise how many concepts of Thelema are already present in the Buddhist teaching. Unveiling them is the ambition of this essay.

Even though this essay is theoretical, everything explored herein comes from personal experience and is confronted with research from Theravada Buddhist sources. Every practitioner is unique, but our experiences should be similar enough that the concepts explained here apply to everyone’s practice to a satisfying degree. Should meditation bring a phenomenon that is hard to explain, it is advised to seek reliable resources on the subject, taking care to pick the ones with the best phenomenology.

Buddhist teaching is organized in Three Trainings: Morality, Serenity (Concentration Meditation) and Wisdom (Insight Meditation). Given Crowley’s opinion of the Morality side of the training, it won’t be discussed in this essay. We will however, try and dispel any further bias. We will study Concentration Meditation and explore how it leads to Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi and Nirodha as Crowley intended them. We will also delve into Insight Meditation, the practice of looking at sensations without judgment, which leads to selflessness and more.

Concentration

Concentration meditation is the practice of keeping the attention on one point to the exclusion of anything else. That point is commonly called the Object of Concentration in Buddhist literature. The Object of Concentration the most often recommended is the breath, but the meditator is free to choose anything: a part of the body, a kasina (which is somewhat similar to tattvas), a concept like nothingness… The breath is so commonly advised because it takes no effort; in fact it can’t be stopped or forgotten. We usually pay little attention to the breath in our daily life which means that when we do pay attention to it, we have little tendency to attach stories to it. It’s an easy object to look at without distraction. It is indeed important to keep in mind that the goal of Concentration Meditation is maintaining our attention on the Object, not thinking about the Object or analyzing the Object. Anything other than steady attention is considered a distraction (what Crowley called Break). It is noteworthy for the reader that at the beginning of a session of Concentration Meditation, even for an advanced practitioner, the sole goal will be to handle distractions. The difference between an advanced meditator and a beginner is how quickly one can deal with the waves of distractions. In Buddhism, distractions are separated in Five Hindrances: sensory desire, ill will, torpor, restlessness and doubt. Sensory desire is here intended in the sense of a distracting sensory impulse like an itch or a sound in the room. Ill will is meant as an aversion for the practice at hand or for the Object of Concentration itself. Torpor is the tendency to dose off causing the dropping of the head. Restlessness is an agitated urge to move or a short attention span. Doubt is distrust in the method or the teacher. There will be time when distractions seem gone only to come back in a new wave, crashing against the shore of one’s practice. Eventually, when distractions subside, comes Dharana.

When one has mastered distractions, one falls in a state commonly called Access Concentration (Crowley sometimes referred to it as Neighborhood Concentration). In yogic terms, it is Dharana. It is a definite state of consciousness. It is tempting to fool oneself into thinking that one is concentrated enough to call it Dharana. However Dharana feels like something has changed, with a definite and clearly perceived transition, like a piece of machinery that fits in place. During the initial stages of Concentration Meditation, one will undoubtedly start seeing moving lights of various colors and shapes behind the closed eyelids. The Buddhists call it Nimitta[1]. Meaning “sign”, the Nimitta is useful to cultivate because it points in the right direction. However it shouldn’t distract from the Object of Concentration. The practitioner should simply notice that a Nimitta appeared and keep practicing. There is a special kind of Nimitta that usually makes quite an impression on the meditator, even with experience. Often called the Counterpart Sign, it is the Nimitta that marks the entrance into Dharana and that leads to Dhyana. It can appear as moonlight or sunlight, sometimes shyly peeking through a veil or a cloud. It is beautiful and precious. The Nimitta, in its guiding role, is akin to a whisper of the Holy Guardian Angel. Let’s briefly examine the phenomenon of Dharana. It is characterized by the lack of effort required to stay focused on the Object of Concentration. Attention is drawn to the Object like a magnet and distraction takes no hold. Thoughts might happen, but they will simply pass by, in the background of the mind. Dharana may feel like an antechamber, like something is about to happen or like anything is possible from here. It’s an empowering state. All is quiet though. The mind is clear and fully aware of itself. Dharana brings pleasurable sensations caused by the surrendering of the mind and of the stories of the ego. This pleasure should be sought after, desired. It is the equivalent of inflaming oneself into prayers as often advised in the teaching of Thelema. The more complete the surrender of the mind, the bigger the pleasure and the closer one gets to Dhyana.

Dhyana is spelled Jhana (from Pali) in Theravada Buddhist literature. Both terms will be used interchangeably in the following pages. But before delving into Dhyana, it would be best to mention mundane jhanas or what some call the soft jhanas. We here enter a muddy territory and one might say the obsessive phenomenology is biting its own tail by creating more categories of experience than one might need. It is beyond the scope of this essay to explain them in more details[2] than painting them as a mild Jhana. It is only important to realize that when they write about the Jhana, some writer will mean mundane or soft jhana and some will mean the Dhyana as Crowley intended it. It is an unfortunate state of affairs, but it is what it is and the reader should be warned. The mundane jhana isn’t the most useful state, but it teaches the basics of Dhyana. It introduces to the Five Factors[3]. It helps distinguish between the Eight Jhanas (that Crowley barely mentioned). It allows learning Insight by studying the Three Characteristics[4] of those Factors as they appear, which is impossible in the actual Jhana or Dhyana. The mundane jhana framework also gives a sense of progress which is encouraging given how long it takes to reach Dhyana. Hopefully, this segue didn’t confuse our reader. The Thelemite will be well advised to stick to the Buddhist writers who talk about the supramundane or “deep” Jhana (Crowley’s Dhyana) such as the traditional texts (the Pali Canon), the Visuddhimagga or the work of Pa Auk, Henepola Gunaratana or Ajahn Brahmavamso to name a few. It might be of interest to note that these authors are usually also the ones who talk about the Siddhis (powers).

In part two, we will explore deeper states of consciousness.

[1] See “The Jhanas” by Ajahn Brahmavamso for a detailed study and description of the various types of Nimitta.

[2] A comparative approach to the two types of Jhana is taken by Henepola Gunaratana in his book “Path of Purification A Critical Analysis of the Jhanas”. The mundane jhanas are what is meant by Jhana in the popular book “Right Concentration” by Leigh Brasington.

[3] More on the Five Factors below.

[4] More on studying the Three Characteristics in the chapter on Insight Meditation.