Southern Esoteric Buddhism

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Southern Esoteric Buddhism and Borān kammaṭṭhāna ('former practices') are terms used to refer to certain esoteric practices, views and texts within

L.S. Cousins defines it as "a type of Southern Buddhism which links magical and, ritual practices to a theoretical systematisation of the Buddhist path itself".^[1][2]

One specific kind of Southern Esoteric Buddhism is termed the Yogāvacara tradition. It is most widely practiced today in Cambodia and Laos and in the pre-modern era was a major Buddhist current in Southeast Asia.

In the west, the study of Southern Esoteric Buddhism was pioneered by professor

The Yogāvacara tradition was a mainstream Buddhist tradition in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand well into the modern era. An inscription from Northern Thailand with esoteric elements has been dated to the Sukhothai Kingdom of the 16th century. Kate Crosby notes that this attestation makes the esoteric tradition earlier than “any other living meditation tradition in the contemporary Theravada world.”^[4]

Yogāvacara (18th century)

During the reign of

The devastation of Cambodian religion by the

Cousins sees the practice of Southern Esoteric Buddhism as being defined by the mapping of inner and outer worlds, and calls it 'tantro-kabbalistic' mysticism. By this he means "a form of mysticism which utilizes a rather elaborate map of correspondences -between the human body, the cosmos and some kind of higher reality or knowledge. In the process it draws on the full resources of the widely-dispersed traditions of magic and the occult - letter, sound and number symbolism together with the use of structured patterns of shape or gesture."[1]

Features of Yogāvacara practice include:^[1][3]

• The use of encoded language
• Energy centers & channels like cakra/marma & nadi
• Esoteric interpretation of Buddhist words, objects, myths, numbers and the
  Abhidhamma Pitaka
  texts
• The importance of initiation by a Guru (master)
• The use of the symbolism of embryology
• The practice of a type of meditation in which one visualizes and gives birth to a 'Buddha within' and the Dharmakāya.
• Chemistry of mercury as model for ongoing process of purification
• The practice of
  magic
  for healing, longevity, protection, etc.
• Alchemy
• Worship (
  puja
  ) of Buddhas, Devas and Spirits
• A path which is open to all, monastics and lay persons
• Internal/external applications (Right hand-left hand)
• The importance of ritual.

Two of the most widely used sacred

The recitation of these sacred phrases was used as a meditation practice.[3] Robert Percival (in Ceylon from 1796 to 1800), described Buddhist mantra meditation thus: "To their girdles they wear suspended strings of beads made of a brownish or black wood; and mutter prayers as they go along."^[1]

In one text studied by Bizot, meditation includes the use of visualization of colored lights paired with sacred syllables located throughout the body and visions of the Buddha and a

In his study of the Saddavimala, a Yogāvacara text which was widely circulated in Southeast Asia (with over two hundred extant manuscripts), Bizot gives an outline of Yogāvacara practice:^[3]

"The yogavacara must:

1. memorise the stages of the embryonic development (with their alphabetic equivalents) which form the stages of his own formation;
2. through these stages build himself another body using the organs and constituents that are the letters, i.e. the portions of the Dhamma;
3. become conscious that this new body which he is going to produce outside of himself, first takes form within him, in his stomach at the level of the navel, taking the form of a Buddha the height of a thumb;
4. pursue and achieve in this life the construction of this immortal vehicle because it leads the person who possesses it to
   Nibbana
   , in that it takes the place of the spent physical form at the moment of death."

In contemporary Southern Buddhism, these practices are sometimes termed Boran Kammatthana (former practices) and are most widely seen in Cambodian Buddhism. They usually involve "the physical internalisation or manifestation of aspects of the Theravada path by incorporating them at points in the body between the nostril and navel."^[12]

The practices of the Burmese Buddhist Weizza ("Wizards") who follow an esoteric system of occult practices (such as recitation of spells, samatha and alchemy) which are believed to lead to supernormal powers and a life of immortality might also be related to Southern Esoteric Buddhism.

See also

• Indonesian Esoteric Buddhism
• Buddhism in Cambodia
• Buddhism in Thailand
• Tantra
• Vajrayana

References