Benares

The term "Kasina" originates from the Pali word "kasiṇa," meaning "whole" or "entire." It refers to the complete focus on the object of meditation, encompassing the entirety of the practitioner's awareness. The practice is documented in ancient Buddhist scriptures.

Kasina (Sk.). A mystic Yoga rite used to free the mind from all agitation and bring the Kamic element to a dead stand-still.

Helena Blavatsky's definition, though referencing a "mystic Yoga rite" and the "Kamic element," points toward a core function of the Kasina: the disciplined quieting of the mind's restless energies. While Blavatsky's terminology might lean towards a more generalized esoteric vocabulary, the Kasina itself is a precise technique within Buddhist meditation, particularly Theravada. The practice involves focusing intently on one of ten colored disks (e.g., blue, yellow, red) or other elemental objects like water, fire, or light. This unwavering attention, this absorption in the object to the exclusion of all else, is not merely about achieving a blank state. Rather, it is about cultivating a profound, one-pointed concentration, a state of samadhi, where the mind becomes still and clear, like a placid lake reflecting the sky. Mircea Eliade, in his exploration of archaic techniques of ecstasy, would recognize in the Kasina a method for transcending ordinary consciousness by mastering the sensory apparatus. Carl Jung, too, might see it as a form of active imagination, where the projected energy onto the Kasina object becomes a focal point for inner transformation. The goal is not to become attached to the blue disk, for instance, but to use the blue disk as a ladder, a vehicle to transcend the very concept of "blue" and arrive at a state of pure awareness, free from the dualities that plague the unenlightened mind. It is a deliberate, structured engagement with the world of form to arrive at the formless. This deliberate engagement with the concrete, the tangible, serves as a gateway to an experience of reality unmediated by conceptual thought.

RELATED_TERMS: Samadhi, Vipassanā, Dhyana, Mindfulness, Concentration, Jhana, Trance, Contemplation