Seeing the Bodies Within
An in-depth examination of the Samma Araham tradition, a distinctive Theravada Buddhist meditation system that emphasizes visualization, mantra, and the discovery of the spiritual bodies within us.
Discovered in a vision by the monk Luang Pho Sot Candasaro in 1916, Samma Araham is a thriving meditation tradition in its native Thailand, but little understood in the West. In this fascinating overview, Jak Cholvijarn weaves together Candasaro’s life story, the historical context that shaped his influential teachings, and the enduring legacy of the Samma Araham meditation system that he established. Drawing on Candasaro’s own writings and sermons, Cholvijarn presents the entire Samma Araham meditation system in all its intricate detail, demonstrating how the practice incorporates elements of both canonical Buddhist texts like the Satipatthana Sutta, as well as the regional boran kammatthana or “old meditation” practices that once thrived in Southeast Asia. Detailed descriptions of the meditative journey into a series of eighteen “inner bodies,” each corresponding to different levels of Buddhist teaching reveal a colorful, mystical side of the Theravada tradition that has gone underappreciated in the age of mindfulness and insight meditation.
"Seeing the Bodies Within solidifies Sot Candasaro as a key protagonist in modern Thai Buddhism. In tracing this master’s life and teachings, Cholvijarn skillfully reveals a stunning range of meditation practices in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Thailand, where monks, nuns, and laypeople pioneered countless variations on how to train the mind and find liberation within." —Trent Walker, author of Until Nirvana's Time
"Seeing the Bodies Within brings to life and contextualizes the origins of one of the most significant meditation traditions of the modern world, the globally practiced sammā arahaṃ, or vijjā dhammakāya, method of Venerable Sot Candasaro (1884–1959). Cholvijarn’s book is important not only in explaining Sot’s innovative drawing together of traditional, esoteric Thai practices (boran kammaṭṭhāna) with canonical sources such as the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, but also in tracing the diversity of Thai meditation practice on the cusp of modernity, as well as the subsequent developments that shaped how Theravada meditation is practiced today." —Kate Crosby, author of Esoteric Theravada and Numata Professor of Buddhist Studies, University of Oxford
"Western understandings of Theravada and its lesser-known practices have recently been revolutionized by scholarly works that have revealed the true nature of the meditative systems that have been practised historically "on the ground" throughout Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Cholvijarn, brought up in these cultures, outlines his own research and contacts with Thai "old meditations." From the engaging immediacy of his personal experiences as a child to his study of the sammā arahaṃ meditative system and its practitioners, Cholivjarn’s narration guides us through the histories of one of the most distinguished lineages of Thai meditative practice. It offers an eloquent guide to these calm and insight practices, still taught as a living tradition to provide the practitioner a complete and balanced path to awakening." —Sarah Shaw, author of Breathing Mindfulness and The Art of Listening
"Seeing the Bodies Within is a masterly review of the life and teachings of Luang Pho Sot Candasaro, the bhikkhu who served as abbot of Wat Paknam, Bangkok. Potprecha Cholvijarn unravels the complex network of influences that led Luang Pho Sot to develop his formulation of inner dhammakāya bodies that may be experienced during deep meditation. Within a framework of the four foundations of mindfulness taught by the Buddha, Cholvijarn explores various threads of influence stemming from the centuries-old borān kammathāna (traditional, esoteric) meditation practices of Thailand—practices that were nearly suppressed and lost to history due to modernization reforms in Thai Buddhism. A fascinating book" —Paul Dennison, author of Jhāna Consciousness