Lightly edited transcript Filler words and caption errors removed by machine; the meaning is unchanged.
Delson explains the meaning of sammasamadhi, or right collectedness, by breaking down the word samadhi and its link to Nibbana. He then describes the jhanas as four rupa levels plus four ayatanas, and presents them as levels of understanding and of cessation of mental activity. The talk is short and does not give practice instructions.
Key points
- Delson explains that sammasamadhi (right collectedness) is 'right' because it leads to Nibbana, and he presents mindfulness from the previous week as the basis that naturally leads to it.
- He breaks down samadhi as sama (balanced, even, harmonious) plus sam or the root meaning 'to gather', so right samadhi is a mind that is even and collected.
- He says that in reality there are four rupa jhanas and four ayatanas, and that the eight jhanas often mentioned in the suttas are a conversational shorthand.
- He glosses jhana as coming from the Sanskrit dhyana, meaning to study, look at, or understand, so the jhanas are levels of understanding.
- He describes the jhanas also as levels of cessation, where coarse mental activity stops first and progressively subtler disturbances cease until perception, feeling and consciousness cease entirely.
Themes
Where this talk sits on the path
This talk speaks mostly to Neither-perception-nor-non-perception.
The path runs from Foundations to Arahant; read at any point along it.
Transcript
Right samadhi and its meaning
Today we're going to be doing right collectedness, or what's known as sama samadhi in Pali. But what does sama samadhi mean? Remember, the word sama means proper or right or harmonious or effective, however you want to put it. And what it's saying is it is samadhi which is proper. Proper why? Because it's leading to Nibbana.
Last week I told you about mindfulness as being, or rather remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. So mindfulness then naturally leads to right samadhi or right collectedness. So this word samadhi, it's a word that's used in different kinds of traditions. We see it in Buddhism, we see it in Hinduism, we see it in Jainism, and they all have different ways of interpreting it.
But the commonality about samadhi is that it is essentially two words or a contraction of two words. Sama or some, now that depends on how you interpret it. Sama means to be balanced or to be harmonious or to be even. Dhi is the short form for buddhi, which is our intellect, which is our mind. So samadhi is all about having a mind that is even, that is equal to all things, or sam, sam means to gather, S-A-M, to gather, to collect.
Therefore, we say right collectedness. At right samadhi or right collectedness it has the four jhanas. In reality, this is what's really important to understand: in reality there is only, or there are only, four jhanas. Conversationally, or sometimes in the suttas, we'll read of the eight jhanas, but in reality there's the four jhanas and the four ayatanas.
The four jhanas are the rupa jhanas, as we understand the form attainments or the form levels of understanding. And then the ayatanas are essentially experiences that are within the scope of the fourth jhana. So that would be infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception or non-perception. So the word jhana actually comes from the Sanskrit dhyana. And dhyana means to study, to look, to understand.
So jhana in Pali is essentially levels of understanding. There are also levels of cessation. Why? Because they cease coarse mental activity in the beginning and subtler and subtler mental waves or disturbances until you come to a point where you have the total cessation of all perception, feeling and consciousness. as a result of which or from where they can arise, so to speak, Nibbana.