A dear Zen friend used the term ‘samadhi’ recently which got me thinking because this word is a Sanskrit word that means an unwavering state of one pointed concentration. Why had he used it when the Japanese words ’satori’ and ‘kensho’ were the usual words to describe the realisation that arises from Zen meditation practice? So if you can bare a more ‘wordy’ blog than usual let’s have a look at what’s going on here but at the same time keep it closely tied into experience.
Let’s imagine we are established meditators. When we sit down we have the ability to deeply still our minds through concentration. It’s a bit like throwing a pebble into a pond. When the pebble hits the water there is a splash but as it sinks the disturbance gets less and less. Similarly as our concentration deepens the side effects of joy and happiness begin to recede until we are resting in a state of perfectly unwavering concentration and equanimity. No distracting thoughts or emotions at all. This state is called an ‘absorption state’, jnana - we are completely absorbed. Samadhi/concentration is the means to cultivate, enter and remain within it. OK so far?
Now what is the point of going to so much trouble to cultivate this one pointed state of immovable equanimity? After all, happiness and joy are no longer part of it? Well the answer is that this absorption state enables us to know how things really are without anything distorting or obscuring our vision. Remember, this is the ultimate goal of all Buddhist meditations. Direct experiential insight into reality. So what does this platform of an absolutely calm mind reveal?
If I am a Buddhist at the time of the Buddha I would frame this experience as the ‘three factors of existence’. When caught up in my thoughts and emotions I suffer. However, having now gradually cultivated and stabilised one pointed equanimity, what I observe is everything is in perpetual transition and that when I look for an unchanging sense of ‘me’ in the centre of all this change I cannot find it. Knowing this, the fires of meaningless and futile craving are extinguished and with this an endless perfect peace is found - nibbana.
If I am a Tibetan Buddhist sitting in my mountain retreat fifteen hundred years later I would frame it differently. I would talk about exactly the same thing as just relaxing into non-dual awareness, rigpa. Very simple. Relaxation is found through a calm mind that is achieved through concentration and this gives insight into the nature of reality, which in this case is described as an infinitely spacious awareness in which the whole of the phenomenal universe - including what I mistakenly think of as ‘myself’ - perpetually arises and dissolves. This awareness is not created, outside of time and change, neither a thing nor nothing, it is and has always been present. Remove the obscuring thoughts and emotions and there it already is.
If I am a Zen Buddhist called Dogen sitting facing a blank wall within my monastery several hundred years later I would frame it differently again. I have realised that if everything is non-dual awareness - I call it ‘buddha-nature’ - then the whole thing about having to go on a long journey of cultivating concentration, to achieve a level of equanimity from which to gain an enlightening insight into reality, isn’t quite right. Surely this reality is already here. Everything is already buddha-nature. It is always present and as such the entire universe is its expression. It is not something that I need to create or cultivate through meditation. And here comes the wow bit. Because of this my meditation is an expression of buddha-nature. As I just sit on this mat, buddha-nature is expressing itself perfectly without me ‘doing’ anything whatsoever. Knowing this is an insight into reality, the essence of things, seeing into my deepest nature - in Japanese ‘kensho’, and the state of consciousness that enables this realisation is ‘satori’, a flash of instantaneous awakening.
So what about our three words, samadhi, satori and kensho? Plainly my friend's use of samadhi cannot simply mean concentration - remember, with Dogen he does not believe awakening is something cultivated but rather is an instantaneous revelation of what already is - satori and kensho. So it seems that in the Zen context the term samadhi has been on a journey. No longer describing a mind absorbed in one pointed concentration but a mind that is blown open and rests within the reality that this opening reveals.
Phew!
NW, with thanks to JW. 14.11.2023
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