Why Practice Shamatha1 PDF
Why Practice Shamatha1 PDF
Alan Wallace
I have been drawn to the practice of shamatha from the time I was first introduced
to it, in Dharamsala, India, in the early nineteen-seventies. I was immediately
intrigued by the possibility of using the methods of shamatha (literally meaning
quiescence) to explore the nature of the mind firsthand. Such practices lead to
advanced stages of samadhi, or meditative concentration, where one is able to focus
unwavering attention on a single object. This object may be as small as a single point
or as vast as space, so it does not necessarily entail a narrowing of focus, only a
coherence of focused attention. This is what Tibetan Buddhists refer to when
speaking of achieving shamatha and settling the mind in its natural state.
After studying and practicing Buddhism for ten years, I devoted myself for
another four years to practicing solitary retreats in Asia and the United States,
training first under the guidance of His Holiness. the Dalai Lama and later under the
Sri Lankan monk and scholar Balangoda Ananda Maitreya. Both these great teachers
indicated to me that the actual achievement of shamatha in todays world is very
rare. After another decade, I made my first journey to Tibet to find out whether
there were still contemplatives there who had achieved shamatha, and discovered
that such people did exist, but they were few and far between.
The purpose of shamatha is to achieve states of samadhi known as dhyana,
or meditative stabilization. There are four dhyanas corresponding to increasingly
subtle states of samadhi, and the Buddha strongly emphasized the importance of
achieving at least the first dhyana in order to achieve personal liberation. This point
is well illustrated by a crucial turning point in the Buddhas pursuit of enlightenment.
After six years of practicing austerities, and having recognized the ineffectiveness of
his efforts, Prince Gautama remembered a time in his youth when he had
spontaneously entered the first dhyana. Recalling this experience, the thought came
to himMight that be the way to enlightenment? Gautama struggled to regain
this heightened state of awareness, and after doing so he swiftly achieved
enlightenment.
In the process of achieving the first dhyana, ones ordinary mind and sense
of personal identity dissolve into an underlying, subtle continuum of mental
consciousness that is usually experienced only during dreamless sleep and at death.
When this continuum is accessed by way of shamatha, it is found to have three
distinctive qualities: bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality. This stable, vivid
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awarenesslike a telescope launched into orbit beyond the distortions of the
earths atmosphereprovides a platform for exploring the deep space of the mind.
According to Buddhaghosa, the most authoritative commentator of
Theravada Buddhism, with the achievement of the first dhyana, flawless samadhi,
free of even the subtlest laxity and excitation, can be sustained for a whole night and
a whole day. While resting in this state, the five physical senses are completely
withdrawn into mental awareness, so that one becomes oblivious of the physical
world, and the mind enters into a state of calm, luminous silence. A great advantage
of achieving the first dhyana is that the five hindrances temporarily become
dormant. These are (1) sensual craving, (2) malice, (3) drowsiness and lethargy, (4)
excitation and remorse, and (5) doubt, all of which obscure the essential nature of
the mind, namely, the subtle, luminous continuum of mental consciousness from
which all ordinary states of waking and dream consciousness emerge. The Buddha
emphasized the importance of overcoming these five hindrances, declaring, So long
as these five hindrances are not abandoned, one considers himself as indebted, sick,
in bonds, enslaved and lost in a desert track.
Later Buddhist contemplatives have drawn a distinction between the actual
state of the first dhyana and a slightly lesser degree of samadhi that is just on the
threshold of the first dhyana. The latter is called access concentration (Pali:
upacarasamadhi), in which the five hindrances are as dormant as they are in the
actual state of the first dhyana, but ones samadhi is a little less robust. Instead of
being able to rest effortlessly in unwavering samadhi for twenty-four hours, one may
do so for only four hoursfar beyond anything considered possible according to
modern psychology.
I have been teaching shamatha for over thirty years, and I cant count the
number of people with training in Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism, who have
told me that, despite years of meditation, their minds are still subject to agitation
and dullness. While they have been trained in more advanced practices within each
of the above traditions, they never established a solid foundation in the more
elementary practices of shamatha. I have also heard of many people who say they
have achieved shamatha and dhyana, many claiming to have done so within a mater
of days, weeks, or just a few months. But despite such reports, few appear to be able
to effortlessly maintain flawless samadhi for at least four hours, with their senses
fully withdrawn, while abiding in a luminous state of blissful samadhi.
Perhaps the most crucial discovery of the Buddha, as he launched his
contemplative revolution in India, was the liberating power of first achieving dhyana
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through the practice of shamatha, and then cultivating vipashyana, or
contemplative insight into essential features of reality (such as impermanence, the
nature of suffering, and the nonexistence of an independent self, or ego). The
transformative power of Buddhist meditation occurs when the stability and vividness
of shamatha is unified with the penetrating insights of vipashyana. Shamatha by itself
results in a temporary alleviation of the fundamental causes of suffering, and
vipashyana by itself provides only fleeting glimpses of reality. Only with the
stabilizing power of shamatha can the insights gleaned from vipashyana thoroughly
saturate the mind, ultimately liberating it from deeply ingrained ways of
misapprehending reality.