Wisdom of the Masters
Ajahn Chah ~ Right Samadhi and Wrong Samadhi ~ Theravadin Buddhism Forest Tradition
17 Jul 2023
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is Right Samadhi and how does it differ from Wrong Samadhi?
Samadhi is capable of bringing much harm or benefit to the meditator. You cannot say it brings only one or the other. For one who has no wisdom, it is harmful. But for one who has wisdom, it can bring a real benefit. It can lead them to insight. That which can be most harmful to the meditator is absorption samadhi, jhana. The Samadhi with deep, sustained calm. This Samadhi brings great peace.
Where there is peace, there is happiness. Where there is happiness, attachment and clinging to that happiness arise. The meditator does not want to contemplate anything else. They just want to indulge in that pleasant feeling. When we have been practicing for a long time, we may become adept at entering this samadhi very quickly.
As soon as we start to note our meditation object, the mind enters calm. We do not want to come out to investigate anything.
Chapter 2: How can Samadhi bring both harm and benefit to the meditator?
We just get stuck on that happiness. This is a danger to one who is practicing meditation. we must use upacara samadhi, access concentration. Here we enter calm and then when the mind is sufficiently calm, we come out and look at the outer activity of what's happening in the mind. We must look at outer activity the sense impressions and the effect they have on the mind.
Looking like this with a calm mind gives rise to wisdom. This might be difficult to understand because it's almost like ordinary thinking and imagining. When thinking is there, we might think that the mind isn't peaceful, but actually that thinking is taking place within the calm mind. There is contemplation, but it doesn't disturb the calm. we may bring thinking up in order to contemplate it.
Here we take up the thinking to investigate it. It's not that we're aimlessly thinking or imagining a way. It's something that arises from a peaceful mind. This is called awareness within calm and calm within awareness.
Chapter 3: What is the significance of awareness in meditation practice?
If it's simply ordinary thinking and imagining, the mind won't be peaceful. It will be disturbed. But I'm not talking about ordinary thinking. This is a feeling that arises from a peaceful mind. It's called contemplation. Wisdom is born right here. So there can be right samadhi and wrong samadhi. Wrong Samadhi is when the mind enters calm and there's no awareness at all.
One could sit for two hours or even all day, but the mind doesn't know where it's been or what's happened. It doesn't know anything. There is calm, but that's all. It's like a well-sharpened knife which we don't bother to put to any use. This is the deluded type of calm because there is not much self-awareness. The meditator may think that they have reached the ultimate already.
so they don't bother looking for anything else.
Chapter 4: What are the dangers of absorption samadhi?
Samadhi can be an enemy at this level. Wisdom cannot arise because there is no awareness of right and wrong. With right samadhi, no matter what level of calm is reached, There is awareness. There is full mindfulness and clear comprehension. This is the samadhi which can give rise to wisdom. One cannot get lost in it. Meditators should understand this well. You cannot do without this awareness.
It must be present from beginning to end. This kind of samadhi has no danger. You may wonder, where does the benefit arise? How does the wisdom arise from Samadhi? When Right Samadhi has been developed, wisdom has the chance to arise at all times. When the eye sees a form, the ear hears a sound,
Chapter 5: How does Right Samadhi facilitate the development of wisdom?
The nose smells odour, the tongue experiences taste, the body experiences touch, or the mind experiences mental impressions. In all postures, the mind stays with full knowledge of the true nature of those sense impressions. It doesn't follow them. When the mind has wisdom, it doesn't pick and choose. In any posture, we are fully aware of the birth of happiness and unhappiness.
We let go of both of these things. We don't cling. This is called right practice which is present in all postures. These words, all postures, do not refer only to bodily postures. They refer to the mind which has mindfulness and clear comprehension of the truth at all times. When Samadhi has been rightly developed, wisdom arises like this. This is called insight, knowledge of the truth.
There are two kinds of peace, the coarse and the refined. The peace which comes from samadhi is the cause type. When the mind is peaceful, there is happiness.
Chapter 6: What is the difference between happiness and peace in meditation?
The mind then takes his happiness to be peace. But happiness and unhappiness are becoming and birth. There is no escape from samsara here. because we still cling to them. So happiness is not peace. Peace is not happiness. The other type of peace is that which comes from wisdom. Here we don't confuse peace with happiness.
We know the mind which contemplated and knows happiness and unhappiness as peace. The peace which sees the truth of both happiness and unhappiness. Clinging to either of those states does not arise. The mind rises above them. This is the true goal of all Dharma practice.
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