Samādhi—Peace

Samādhi–the next of the Spiritual Faculties–is often translated as “concentration,” but I prefer the concept of peace.

It is the ability to let go of what is disturbing and go to a place in the mind which is less disturbing. As we progressively give things up and tranquilize the mind, then the mind is going to become more and more peaceful and blissful. Then it can even give up blissfulness and go to a state of equanimity.

The tranquility of meditation has a lot of benefits: it gives energy to the mind by providing a place of rest. Then when the mind comes out of that state, we can put it to work. It’s like our bodies; if we get over-tired, we need to rest, and then when we’ve slept enough, we can get up and go to work.

We don’t over-sleep and not work at all – nor do we over-work and not rest at all. There has to be a balance. Each person will have their own balance of how much the mind needs to go into tranquility and how much the mind needs to work, to investigate and consider, in order to develop insight and understanding.

There are various steps to calming the mind. The first is developing the sense of well-being and contentment. Then the next is when from that contentment a sense of gladness arises. When there’s gladness in the mind, that leads to rapture. And that rapture then leads to tranquility of the body, this buoyancy of the body, which leads to happiness; a happiness of the mind as it dwells on wholesomeness. Now when that arises, then the mind becomes concentrated.

The precondition for concentration is happiness. If ones asks, “Well, why am I not calm and concentrated?” it is because the mind is not dwelling happily on a wholesome object. So when you watch the breath, watch it to see its beauty. Joyfully, happily watch each in-breath and know it as a friend who you haven’t seen for a long time. With each breath that comes in, you’re glad to greet that breath; and with each breath that goes out, you’re glad with the breath. Glad of the in-breath, glad of the out-breath.

And as we do that, then the mind gradually lets go of distraction, lets go of the body, and then lets go of all thinking. The body feels light and the mind becomes more and more calm and concentrated.

The result of calming the mind down is that one has access to wisdom. We use the Buddha’s wisdom to develop our own. The wisdom of the Buddha’s enlightenment is that all conditioned things are impermanent, that all conditioned things are dukkha, and that all things are not-self. We have received that; so we put it to work with our experience, using his wisdom to cultivate our own.

And in this way we come to Right View.

This reflection by Ajahn Nyanadhammo is from the edited Dhamma talk The Spiritual Faculties, (pdf) p. 5.