The Path of Samādhi
Dharma Notes #3
When I wrote Dharma Notes #1, I intentionally chose a subject that serves as a beginning to the spiritual path. I wanted to bring out an interesting point about how the Ekottarika Āgama presented a key phrase in early Buddhist texts in a way not found anywhere else. But the topic involved is typically presented as the most basic and introductory of practices in Buddhism: generosity. Generosity, however, can plant deep roots in one’s spiritual development when it’s done out of compassion and affection.
These qualities can have mixed results in the beginning because we can easily become emotionally involved and attached to those to whom we practice giving. I drew this point out in Dharma Notes #2 with a contemplation of the axiom “all created things are impermanent.” When we are emotionally involved with someone we are helping — in the case of my first and second essay, my example was a tree squirrel named Maryetta — we naturally find ourselves paying attention to them over the long term. And this attention makes us aware of impermanence. Indeed, if we paying attention over a long period of time to anything, we will notice impermanence in action. This becomes a problem when our desires and attachments are impacted by that impermanence. Things change, decay, and disappear. This can result in trauma when it’s friends and family who are impermanent and leave us, or anything else we to which we become attached, such as a career, a home, or a memento.
All of this begs a question — a question that Buddhism seeks to answer for us: What is to be done about the suffering that results from our inability to hold onto ourselves, much less the world around us?
Buddhism lays out a vision of life that presents it as a trap that we need to escape. And this is certainly not far off the mark. The primary trouble is that we spend most of life not paying attention to anything long enough to realize the bigger or longer term picture. “Karma is a bitch” is a common expression in modern times, and Buddhism certainly would agree. Our passions, especially negative passions, get the best of us in the short run and bring us to sorrow in the long run.
Even when we manage to avoid bad actions and their consequences, the rewards of a virtuous life do not last forever, and losing them is its own form of suffering. Just ask a former middle or upper class person who has been pauperized. Or someone living a good life only to be told one day that they have a terminal illness. As a result, this life in all its varieties is insecure. We can forget about that insecurity when we’re in a particularly good place for a while, but the time we spend there runs out eventually.
Humans are unique on planet Earth compared to other forms of life in that we have language, abstract thought, and the ability to manipulate things with our hands. The result is that we have many ways to distract ourselves from the basic state of nature. We can pursue all sorts of academic studies, technical skills, creative arts, careers, and the like. Such things that we create with our hands, minds, and social relationships distract us from what I call “the ground level” of life. We humans climb a ladder of abstraction and social status. The higher we climb, the less we are aware of the physical realities of life, but the more painful the fall back to the ground becomes if we lose our footing.
The ground level is inhabited by wildlife. I’ll return to the tree squirrels I used as an example before. A tree squirrel’s life is pretty simple but at times harrowing. Each day, they wake up when the sun begins to rise. They have a few basic tasks to achieve before the sun sets again. They must find enough to eat and drink for a day, and perhaps make up for a previous day without enough food. Once they have eaten enough, they search for excess food that can be tapped some other day when there’s none to be found. They must keep themselves physically safe from accidents and predators. They must have a place to sleep at night, preferably one out of reach of nocturnal predators that keeps out the wind, rain, and snow.
In addition to these day to day tasks, they must also procreate to keep the species alive and replace the attrition of predation and illness. This is a powerful instinct that leaves them little choice. Female squirrels spend up to half of every year rearing one or two litters of offspring during the winter and summer. Male squirrels go on extended walkabouts tracking down females in heat twice a year, and they sometimes fight with other males when they find them.
This is the ground level of life: survival of the individual and the species. Everything they do revolves around these two imperatives. It’s a struggle that eventually ends in every squirrel’s demise. The risks catch up to them. A predator catches them by surprise. They miscalculate when to cross the street. They contract an illness. Or a squirrel might simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time, such as in a tree that falls during a storm. But if they manage to procreate before they perish, which is not at all guaranteed, then their individual life continued the collective life of squirrels as a species.
This ground level of life even exists at the microscopic level. Microbes are in a constant struggle to eat and not be eaten. Here’s a video showing this unseen world that parallels our own in the water of every puddle and pond:
Buddhism is a liberation religion, perhaps the oldest of the liberation religions. It’s often called a philosophy, and the Buddhist tradition certainly has built up enough philosophy to keep a person busy for a lifetime. But the philosophy arose as a secondary discipline to the business of liberating human beings from the calamity of life. How exactly this is accomplished depends on the particular Buddhist tradition, and even the particular scripture that is being read.
Today, I want to select a particular scripture: The Abodes of Mindfulness Sūtra, as it’s found in the Ekottarika Āgama (EĀ 12.1). This text exists in a few different versions. The most well known version actually exists in two versions, one a little more detailed than the other: MN 10 and DN 22. The most detailed version of this sūtra is found in the canon of the Sarvāstivādins (MĀ 98). My choice to write about this version in EĀ is partly because it is simpler and more coherent, and it’s partly because this version makes points that are uniquely insightful.
Something we should bear in mind before we begin reading this text is that the life of a mendicant monk in the early days of Buddhism was much closer to the life of a squirrel than to that of a modern person. They lived “the homeless life,” meaning that they did not have a home beyond temporary housing. Ideally, they lived away from villages and towns in the forests of ancient India as recluses for extended periods of time. They got up at daybreak and solicited alms from laypeople, then went back to their seclusion to contemplate at the ground level of life.
The introduction to EĀ 12.1 lays out the basic road to liberation: By following the singular path, sentient beings purify their conduct and rid themselves of grief (that results from bad behavior). Once they have removed mental afflictions (i.e., habitual character flaws such as greed, hate, and delusion), they realize great wisdom and attain nirvāṇa. This is accomplished by stopping five hindrances and contemplating four subjects (or abodes) of mindfulness. This is the Buddhist path in a nutshell.
The text next glosses the term “single entry path” for us. The term that literally means “single entry” is glossed to mean the mind focusing on a single thing. This is a very common reading for samādhi, or a state of unified and mindful attention. The “path” is glossed as referring to the noble eightfold path. Thus, the authors considered the entire term “single entry path” to mean “the mind focused entirely on the eightfold path,” or perhaps “the path of focusing the mind on a single thing,” which is equivalent to “the path of samādhi.”
Generally speaking, wisdom is said to arise through meditation in other passages of EĀ, meaning through undistracted contemplation of subjects like impermanence, dependent origination, the five aggregates, and sensory experience. In other traditions of Buddhism, this relationship seems reversed: Instead, wisdom (termed as right view) becomes the prerequisite for samādhi, which becomes the endpoint of practice. For these traditions, samādhi apparently confers liberation rather than wisdom, perhaps through a transcendental experience, or as an epiphany. This is one of the tensions that we see in different traditions that grew out of early Buddhism. The tradition of EĀ regarded samādhi as necessary for wisdom, but it was wisdom that brought liberation.
The introduction continues by defining for us the five hindrances that are ceased in order to practice the four abodes of mindfulness. These are the same hindrances that are typically associated as barriers to the four meditations (i.e., dhyāna or jhāna): desire, anger, restlessness, drowsiness, and doubt. These states of mind understandably make it difficult to focus and apply oneself to contemplation. Anyone who has experienced writer’s block can attest to these five hindrances usually being the culprits.
Next, the basic program of the four abodes of mindfulness is recited. One turns away bad thoughts and has no grief by contemplating internal body, external body, and both internal and external body. Next, they do the same by contemplating internal feelings, external feelings, and both internal and external feelings. This is repeated again for mind and dharmas (teachings).
This passage is probably an old sūtra memorized as the basic steps of the contemplation. The remainder would properly be considered the commentary on the sūtra representing the detailed explanation a practitioner would be given when it was taught orally.
We should also note that throughout the sūtra the terms “internal” and “external” refer to what’s personal or inside oneself and what’s other or outside of oneself. Thus, “external” body would be understood to mean another being’s body instead of one’s own.
The contemplation of body begins with a contemplation of its impurity. This begins with a contemplation of the various parts of the body and the liquids that it contains. Individually, these are generally not considered attractive, and this is certainly understandable when it comes to internal organs, fluids, and waste. This analysis continues by discerning the four elements that make up the body, which are solids (earth), liquids (water), heat (fire), and motion (air). The practitioner visualizes the body disected along these lines like a butcher might view a cow that he has cut apart, meaning that it’s viewed without any attachment.
The contemplation then turns to the topic of mortality, and seven more contemplations of corpses in various states of decay are considered. In each case, the practitioner reminds themselves that their own body will eventually be in a similar state after they die.
All of this may seem morbid as a whole, but it functions as a way to counteract the natural attraction and attachment that we have for bodies when viewing them as a whole and ignoring their downsides. Thus, it’s not active dislike that’s the goal but rather a neutral detachment that isn’t emotionally involved or desirous. Just as a flower is beautiful to look at and perhaps to smell, it ultimately is only a momentary thing that soon wilts and decays. So, too, are these physical bodies of ours and other beings.
The contemplation of feelings continues the theme of cultivating detachment; in this case, detachment from pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. The practitioner observes feelings as they arise, is mindful of whether they are pleasant or not and what the source of the feelings was. There is a cultivation of self-awareness that results from this as there are no doubt patterns that emerge when one observes the feelings that arises from various sources in their mind. Indeed, our text specifically mentions that the practitioner observes feelings as they arise and notes their origin while reminding themselves that feelings are impermanent. When doing this, the pracititioner can stop having notions about the world. Doing this, they stop being upset by it, which leads to nirvāṇa and freedom from rebirth.
The contemplation of mind describes a practitioner developing the ability to be aware and correctly assess their mental state at any given time. The contemplation begins by describing the awareness of mental afflictions like craving, hate, and delusion. It then moves to positive and negative assessments, such as whether their mind is collected or confused. This proceeds through mental states associated with meditation, though the exact meaning of the terms used are esoteric and left unexplained. The section ends with the ability to assess whether one is liberated or not. This section concludes in the same way the contemplation of feelings did. The practitioner contemplates the impermanence of mental states. They reflect on them, realizing which should be considered and which should not. When they no longer have ideas about the world, they can attain nirvāṇa and liberation.
The final contemplation of the four abodes of mindfulness is perhaps the most interesting in this version of the sūtra, and it harkens back to the introduction. This portion is not so much a mindfulness contemplation as it is a set of final instructions for the attainment of samādhi.
The section begins by directing the practitioner to cultivate of each of the seven factors of awakening, which are mindfulness, teachings, effort, joy, calm, samādhi, and equanimity. These factors themselves are a shorthand for the Buddhist practice generally, which begins with mindfulness and develops the conditions for samādhi and equanimity. The text then moves on to the practice of each of the four meditations, which culminate in the full establishment of samādhi. The section then concludes along the same lines as it did for the previous two abodes of mindfulness that contemplated feelings and mind. These practices are observed to arise and cease, and the practitioner knows them directly through their own practice. When the practitioner no longer produces notions about the world, they can attain nirvāṇa and liberation.
When comparing this version to MĀ 98 and MN 10, one of the more interesting points is that it matches the wording found in MN 10 quite closely at times. This is despite MN 10 having extraneous topics of contemplation added to it like MĀ 98.
Probably the most significant difference is that here each of the last three abodes of mindfulness is said to be an avenue to attaining nirvāṇa when the impermanence and dependent origination of each subject is fully understood. This would represent the development of wisdom from mindful attention over time. This wisdom stops conceptualization about the world in general. Not having confused notions about the world, the practitioner then stops being upset by it and attains liberation.
The other point to notice is that the abode of teachings seems to essentially be a continuation of the seven factors of awakening, with the previous three abodes representing the first factor of mindfulness. The practice of the four meditations could be seen as equivalent to passing through the remainder of the seven factors to arrive at full equanimity with the attainment of the fourth meditation.
The contemplation of the impermanence and dependent origination of this process itself represents a sort of meta-mindfulness that operates throughout to develop wisdom. And this also leads to liberation. This would turn the seven factors of awakening into a circle by linking the final factor of equanimity to the first factor of mindfulness. Or, perhaps, the factor of mindfulness is applied continuously during the entire process. In any case, this point is lost in MN 10 because the four jhānas were (apparently) moved to the mindfulness of body and replaced with the four noble truths.
When I began writing this essay, I had titled it “The One Way Out,” thinking of the Buddhist concept of escape from rebirth and suffering to nirvāṇa combined with the “single entry path” of mindfulness. I ended up discarding that title and opted for the translation of “single entry path” to “path of samādhi” that’s provided for us in the introduction of EĀ 12.1. It seemed more fitting.
However, that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to title this essay “The One Way Out.” I was also thinking of episode 10 of the Star Wars series Andor that was titled “One Way Out.” In that episode, prisoners of the Empire were being used as slave labor in a manufacturing facility from Hell. When they realize that they will never be allowed to leave the labor camp alive, they devise a way to escape and chant “There’s only one way out” throughout their mutiny. For some reason, this reminded me very much of the Buddhist concept of the path to liberation from rebirth, which is similarly a trap from which we won’t be allowed to escape without a spiritual mutiny.
I’ll leave you with a trailer for the series created by a Star Wars fan on YouTube:
“Not having confused notions about the world, the practitioner then stops being upset by it and attains liberation.”