Dogen on Samadhi

By: Eihei Dogen

The Buddha says: 'When you monks unify your minds, the mind is in samadhi. Since the mind is in samadhi, you know the characteristics of the creation and destruction of the various phenomena in the world [...] When you gain samadhi, the mind is not scattered, just as those who protect themselves from floods guard the levee.

From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person, in The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment, by Taizan Maezumi and Bernie Glassman. Dogen (1200-1253) was the founder of the Soto Zen school in Japan.

Ways to Consider Samadhi

By: Rob Burbea

…samadhi is usually translated as ‘concentration’, but in many respects that does not convey the fullness, or the beauty, of what it really means.  Therefore we shall keep it in the original language...  For samadhi involves more than just holding the attention fixed on an object with a minimum of wavering.  And it certainly does not necessarily imply a spatially narrowed focus of the mind on a small area.  Instead here we will emphasize that what characterizes states of samadhi is some degree of collectedness and unification of mind and body in a sense of well-being.  Included in any such state will also be some degree of harmonization of the internal energies of the mind and the body.  Steadiness of mind, then, is only one part of that. 

 …although, as the Buddha did, we can certainly delineate a range of discrete states of samadhi (the jhanas), in this present context let us rather view it mostly as a continuum: of depth of meditation, of well-being, of non-entanglement, and of the refinement of consciousness.  [The advantage of this perspective is that there is less chance that] the relationship with practice becomes fraught with wondering too much if one “has it” or “doesn’t have it”, is “succeeding” or “failing”, is “in” or “out”.  Instead of relating to samadhi practice in terms of measurement or achievement of some goal, it is usually much more helpful, more kind, and less self-alienating to conceive of it as a caring, both in the present and in the long term, for the heart and mind.

From Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising. Rob Burbea (1965-2020) was the Resident Teacher at Gaia House in England. He was an exceptionally gifted and innovative Dharma teacher, drawing on the Insight tradition, Tibetan emptiness practice, depth and archetypal psychology and the imaginal. A wealth of his teachings in both text and audio can be found at hermesamara.org

How Samadhi Can Arise With Zazen Practice

By John Daido Loori

Whether we work on the breath, with a koan, or shikantaza, zazen eventually leads to samadhi.  The first indication is usually an off-sensation of the body.  This happens most frequently during sesshin because of the long periods of sitting.  When you sit for a while without moving the body, it stops receiving information about its edges through the senses, such as the friction of your clothing, or an itch on your leg.  So, although you know the body is there, you don’t feel it.  Some people get frightened at this point and involuntarily their body twitches and defines its edges.  Then they slowly move to that place again, and gradually they learn to trust it and they begin to go a little further each time.  Next comes the off-sensation of the mind.  The mind is dependent on thoughts, but when the thoughts disappear, the mind disappears, the self disappears.  That constant reflex action that says, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here” is the ego manifesting itself.  This is when we realize that we are constantly re-creating ourselves.

From The Art of Just Sitting. John Daido Loori (1931-2009) was the Abbott of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York. He received Dharma Transmission from Taizan Maezumi Roshi. He also received Dharma Transmission in the Harada-Yasutani and Inzan lineages of Rinzai Zen as well.

Attributes of the Mind With Samadhi

By: Bhikkhu P.A. Payutto

The mind with samadhi contains the following main attributes:

1.        Strong and vigorous.  It is compared to a stream of water channeled into one direction, which has greater power than water that has been allowed to flow about without direction.

2.        Calm and serene, still and deep.  It is like a pool or lake of still water, the surface untouched by wind and unbroken by waves. 

3.        Clear, lucid, transparent.  It is like still water, without ripples, in which any dust has settled to the bottom.

4. Pliant and malleable, or fit for work, because it is not tense, not willful, not confused, not dull, not agitated.

From: The Essential Buddhadhamma:The Teachings and Practice of Theravada Buddhism. Bhikkhu Payutto is widely acknowledged as one of Thailand’s foremost Buddhist scholars. His Essential Buddhahamma is considered to be one of the most significant scholarly works on the Buddhism of the Pali Canon published in the last century. It was first published in Thailand in 1971 and was recently translated into English.

Four Aspects of Shikantaza, and Self-Fulfilling Samadhi

By: Hee-Jin Kim

Shikantaza (just sitting) consists of four aspects:

(1) It is that seated meditation which is objectless, imageless, themeless, with no internal or external devices or supports, and is non concentrative, decentered and open-ended. Yet it is a heightened, sustained, and total awareness of the self an the world.

(2) It seeks no attainment whatsoever, be it enlightenment, an extraordinary religious experience, supernormal powers, or buddhahood, and accordingly, it is non-teleological and simply ordinary.

(3) It is “the body-mind cast off” as the state of ultimate freedom, also called the samadhi of self-fulfilling activity (jijiyu zammai)

(4) It requires single-minded earnestness, resolve, and urgency on the part of the meditator.

Note: This quote is from Dogen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection of His View of Zen

Further note: Here is Katagiri Roshi (1928-1990), founder of the Minnesota Zen Center and an important figure in the transmission of Soto Zen from Japan to the West, on the meaning of jijuyu zammai (self-fulfilling samadhi):

Ji means self, ju means receive, yu means use and samadhi means oneness. This means you receive your life and simultaneously the whole universe. That is why samadhi is translated into Japanese as “right acceptance.” Right acceptance is to receive yourself and simultaneously the whole universe. We have to receive the universe and use it. You are you, but you are not you, you are the whole universe. That is why we are beautiful. If we wholeheartedly paint a certain scene from nature on canvas, it becomes not just a portion of nature that we pick out, it represents the whole picture of nature. At that time, that picture becomes a masterpiece… Drawing one line is not one line, this one line is simultaneously the whole picture. That is called jijuyu samadhi.

—This quote is taken from Katagiri’s book Returning to Silence.