Samadhi
Samādhi (Pali and Sanskrit: समाधि), in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools, is a state of meditative consciousness.
[27] Alexander Wynne argues that dhyāna was incorporated from Brahmanical practices, in the Nikayas ascribed to Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta.
[36][35] The stock description of the jhānas, with traditional and alternative interpretations, is as follows:[35][note 2] Appended to the jhana-scheme are four meditative states, referred to in the early texts as arupas or as āyatana.
According to Richard Gombrich, the sequence of the four rupa-jhanas describes two different cognitive states: "I know this is controversial, but it seems to me that the third and fourth jhanas are thus quite unlike the second.
[64] According to Wynne, words expressing the inculcation of awareness, such as sati, sampajāno, and upekkhā, are mistranslated or understood as particular factors of meditative states,[64] whereas they refer to a particular way of perceiving the sense objects.
[66][full citation needed] Thanissaro Bhikkhu has repeatedly argued that the Pali Canon and the Visuddhimagga give different descriptions of the jhanas, regarding the Visuddhimagga-description to be incorrect.
[66][citation needed] Keren Arbel has conducted extensive research on the jhānas and the contemporary criticisms of the commentarial interpretation.
She argues that the four jhānas are the outcome of both calming the mind and developing insight into the nature of experience and cannot not be seen in the suttas as two distinct and separated meditation techniques, but as integral dimensions of a single process that leads to awakening.
She concludes that "the fourth jhāna is the optimal experiential event for the utter de-conditioning of unwholesome tendencies of mind and for the transformation of deep epistemological structures.
"[35] The earliest extant Indian Mahāyāna texts emphasize ascetic practices, forest-dwelling, and states of meditative oneness, i.e. samādhi.
[70] In the Chinese Buddhist tradition these are called the 'three doors of liberation' (sān jiětuō mén, 三解脫門):[71] These three are not always cited in the same order.
[note 15] According to Nagarjuna, aimlessness-samadhi is the samādhi in which one does not search for any kind of existence (bhāva), letting go of aims or wishes (praṇidhāna) regarding conditioned phenomena and not producing the three poisons (namely, passion, aggression, and ignorance) towards them in the future.
[89] Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, has compared the experience of seeing the earth from space, also known as the overview effect, to savikalpa samādhi.
The explanations of the classical commentators on this point appear to be foreign to Patanjali's hierarchy of [ecstatic] states, and it seems unlikely that ānanda and asmita should constitute independent levels of samādhi.
In sānanda samādhi the experience of that ānanda, that sattvic flow, is untainted by any other vrittis, or thoughts, save the awareness of the pleasure of receiving that bliss".
[84] Heinrich Zimmer distinguishes nirvikalpa samādhi from other states as follows: Nirvikalpa samādhi, on the other hand, absorption without self-consciousness, is a mergence of the mental activity (cittavṛtti) in the Self, to such a degree, or in such a way, that the distinction (vikalpa) of knower, act of knowing, and object known becomes dissolved — as waves vanish in water, and as foam vanishes into the sea.
The five afflictions, viz., Avidya (ignorance), Asmita (egoism), Raga-dvesha (love and hatred) and Abhinivesha (clinging to life) are destroyed and the bonds of Karma are annihilated [...] It gives Moksha (deliverance from the wheel of births and deaths).
[95] This state seems inherently more complex than sāmadhi, since it involves several aspects of life, namely external activity, internal quietude, and the relation between them.
Sahaja meditation and worship was prevalent in Tantric traditions common to Hinduism and Buddhism in Bengal as early as the 8th–9th centuries.
[99] In Hindu or Yogic traditions, mahāsamādhi, the "great" and final samādhi, is the act of consciously and intentionally leaving one's body at the moment of death.
"[104] The Bhagavad Gita describes samadhi as the ultimate state of spiritual realization, marked by profound steadiness of mind and deep absorption in the true self.
As far as its terminology goes there is much in the Yoga Sutras that reminds us of Buddhist formulations from the Pāli Canon and even more so from the Sarvastivada Abhidharma and from Sautrāntika".
[108]Robert Thurman writes that Patañjali was influenced by the success of the Buddhist monastic system to formulate his own matrix for the version of thought he considered orthodox.
[109] However, the Yoga Sutra, especially the fourth segment of Kaivalya Pada, contains several polemical verses critical of Buddhism, particularly the Vijñānavāda school of Vasubandhu.
[114][115][116][78] A similar term, nirvikalpa-jñāna, is found in the Buddhist Yogacara tradition, and is translated by Edward Conze as "undifferentiated cognition".
He describes the term as used in the Yogacara context as follows: The "undiscriminate cognition" knows first the unreality of all objects, then realizes that without them also the knowledge itself falls to the ground, and finally directly intuits the supreme reality.
[118][note 27] A different sense in Buddhist usage occurs in the Sanskrit expression nirvikalpayati (Pali: nibbikappa) that means "makes free from uncertainty (or false discrimination)" i.e. "distinguishes, considers carefully".
[citation needed] The Sri Guru Granth Sahib informs: The term Samadhi refers to a state of mind rather than a physical position of the body.
The Scriptures explain: The Sikh Gurus inform their followers: The idea of Fanaa in Sufi Islam has been compared to Samadhi.
