Re: Nimitta

Dear Bhante,

Thank you very much!

Such mantric invocations allow to reconstruct gradual transformation of Dhamma practice.

If we'd imagine a slow degradation of medicine as a body of knowledge, it will gradually dissipate into various medicine-men practices, with techniques being transmitted without any theoretical explanations or methodological context.

Medicine-man would don a white mask and shout: "Give me a lancet, assistant! Give me a lancet!" And he may do something useful like pulling a tooth with handmade tools, holding them in fire beforehand for some mystical reasons.

After a long period of time, with techniques often becoming dangerous due to incorrect transmission, they would have been lost or banned.

I can easily imagine a slow transfromation of abstract, heuristic factor-based methodology, with diagnostics, to more embodied, specific (and hence commonly understandable) methodology, focusing on body centers, and then to mantric invocations.

As for SOAS manuscripts digitization, Erich Kesse currently makes the funding case. He'd appreciate testimonials on usage of this manuscript, so that he would be able to include them in funding case.
https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff91157.php

Best wishes,

Dmytro

2016-09-25 8:16 GMT+03:00 Nyanatusita nyanatusita@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:

Dear Dmytro,

Giving some more thought to the odd contents of kammatthana manuals such as the one translated as Manual of a Mystic, it seems to me that they are not to be taken as instruction treatises that are to be read and studied like the Visuddhimagga, but rather as mantric invocation treatises that are to be recited.
In Thailand, where these works originated from, there is a strong belief in the power of mantras. The sound of the syllables in words such as araha.m, and the way they are arranged and rearranged, are believed to have a special power. In the Manual of a Mystic one finds this when the yogavacara is to recite the word 'araham' as preparation. It seems to me that the passages starting with Okaasa and 'May perception of these things arise in me' (medhammasaññaapaaturahotu as translated in the Manual of a Mystic) and "Thus aspiring, let him produce ... Thus aspiring ... will appear to him' are magic mantric invocations that lead to immediate results.
I have personal experience with some of these teachings. One teacher in northern Thailand, a monk with yantra tatoos, whose disciples I met, is teaching the entering of 'spheres' by way of focussing on chakras on the forehead, throat and heart while araham and buddho are to be recited, depending on the chakra.
Because of these magic and esoteric elements, these kind of practices are sometimes called Khmer Tantric Theravada.
Best,
Nyanatusita

On 9/24/2016 9:12 PM, Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy] wrote:

Dear Pali friends,

Having found a description of Kasiṇa-bhāvanā manuscript in the University of London SOAS library, with all my self-assuredness, I straightforwardly wrote to SOAS.

And, surprise, Mr. Erich Kesse, Digital Library Project Officer, digitized the manuscript in half an hour:

http://digital.soas.ac.uk/AA00000305

And, surprise, it's not written in Cyrillic alphabet.

I would very much appreciate being surprised once again by generous help of someone who knows Sinhala well enough to tell me an abstract of precious knowledge this manuscript contains.

More amazing surpises coming up, - Mr. Kesse wrote me that the Internet Archive has launched a project in the United Kingdom to digitize all of the palm leaf manuscripts in British collections, with emphasis on Pali manuscripts. It is currently digitising the holdings of the British Library, with SOAS holdings hopefully following in the future.

Best wishes,

Dmytro