The Benefits Of Samadhi With Christina Feldman

Join us for our annual challenge to commit to a daily meditation practice throughout the month of January. This year, our Meditation Month teacher, Christina Feldman, will guide us through the cultivation of samadhi. Samadhi is an integral part of meditative development showing us the way to cultivate what the Buddha refers to as a well-trained heart and mind that comes to know the deepest peace and happiness. The second video explores "The Benefits of Samadhi," and includes guided meditation.

Transcript

So welcome back to this second week of this month-long program on the development,

The cultivation of Samadhi,

The well-trained,

The well-developed heart and mind.

This week,

I would like to reflect on some of the benefits of developing this pathway and this capacity that we all have for inner connectedness.

If you have begun to cultivate this practice and this pathway,

I hope you've begun to sense or even to glimpse some of the benefits of the practice and why it is so highly valued in the teaching of the Buddha and its place on the path of awakening.

Starting with a quote from the Buddha where he says,

I know of no one thing that can do so much harm as an untrained mind.

But once understood,

I can think of no one thing that is a greater friend than a well-trained heart and mind.

A key benefit of developing Samadhi,

This inner connectedness,

Is to begin to calm the ongoing habit of proliferation and the underlying mental states that generate proliferation.

The word in Pali for this proliferation is prapancha.

It is the generation of thinking that is rooted in underlying beliefs,

Views,

Moods that distorts our capacity to see things as they actually are.

Experientially,

We know the difficulty and the distress found within a mind that just never seems to stop,

That builds so many narratives,

So many stories about pretty much everything,

Ourselves,

Other people,

The world.

And we can give so much authority to those narratives,

Describing what we think the world is or other people are or who we are.

There's a saying that many people think of their mind as something akin to a mirror,

More or less accurately reflecting the world as it is,

Not appreciating that the mind is the principal architect of that world.

We can find ourselves living with familiar states of agitation,

Anxiety and aversion that generate seemingly endless thinking.

It's exhausting to find ourselves so often just lost in thought,

Disconnected from the moment with all of its joys and sorrows.

When you read the introduction to the Satipatthana Sutta,

One of the very pivotal discourses on the teaching of establishing mindfulness,

The Buddha refers to this agitation.

As I really introduced into the sitting in the last program,

The instruction is to breathe in calming anything that is agitated,

Breathing out calming anything that is agitated.

It's a very intentional way of focusing.

It's not just about watching the breath or your chosen meditation object.

It's not just about coming back or concentrating.

It is very intentional in its guidance that there is a calming of all the waves of agitation in the body and in the mind.

As we begin to calm the body and mind,

The habit of proliferation also begins to calm.

We begin to taste the sweetness of stillness,

The sweetness of calm abiding.

This is a great meditative art and a great life skill.

Calming the proliferation,

We also begin to calm the process of self-building,

The I am.

The clinging is reduced and we begin to emerge from the contrasting contracted world of I and you that is rooted in story,

That is rooted in narrative and reinforced by agitation,

Aversion and confusion.

Samadhi is a very direct way of practicing non-clinging.

There's a discourse when the Buddha describes what it is to be a master of the courses of thought.

He says,

A master of the courses of thought thinks the thoughts they want to think when they want to think them and doesn't think the thoughts they don't wish to think.

That is quite a skill.

Somewhat perhaps unknown in our experience where so many of our thoughts appear quite uninvited,

That appear to linger in ways that is distress causing,

That causes agitation.

It's a very high bar and it's not one to imagine that you will immediately experience,

But it does develop to think the thoughts we want to think when we want to think them.

It is about knowing how this mind that can seem to be a source of such confusion and distress can also be such an ally in the creative process,

In the imagining process,

In the investigating and reflecting process.

It is treating the mind as a friend and as an ally.

The next of the great benefits of Samadhi is happiness,

An inwardly generated happiness.

The Buddha says this kind of pleasure that is found within the well-collected mind,

This kind of pleasure and happiness should be pursued.

It should be developed.

It should be cultivated.

There is nothing to fear in this inwardly generated delight and happiness.

What the Buddha is speaking about is an internally born happiness,

Rooted in inner collectedness.

And there is very profound insight in cultivating this inwardly generated happiness.

It alters our relationship to the world of conditions in deeply ethical ways.

Our relationship to this world of conditions that we all live in is easily rooted in the externalization both of happiness and unhappiness,

And the enchantment with the pleasant conditions and the aversion to the unpleasant conditions.

Finding ourselves often in agitated ways,

Endlessly rearranging or trying to rearrange the conditions in our world of the moment,

Where we have a maximum amount of pleasure and a minimal amount of the unpleasant.

Looking outward to the world,

Often with pleading eyes,

Saying,

Make me happy.

This makes us a consumer of the world.

Samadhi is not only a guardian of the mind.

It is said to be also a guardian of the world.

In discovering this inwardly generated happiness,

The whole surges of craving and aversion begins to come.

We are less entranced with pursuit and avoidance.

We are actually protecting the world from the surges and impulses of craving.

It's a deeply ethical cultivation.

Once this inwardly generated happiness is truly glimpsed and cultivated,

We no longer pursue craving,

Aversion and clinging,

Knowing that the world of conditions can indeed bring us so much that is pleasant,

So much that is delightful,

But does not have the innate capacity to deliver the last to deliver the lasting happiness that we seek for and long for.

There are numerous discourses that recommend the development of Samadhi as an essential factor in beginning to know things actually as they are.

Relieving perceptions of our associations rooted in the past,

How we have known something before,

Allowing us to see anew,

To find a sense of wonder in meeting life as it is.

We begin to see very experientially the changing nature of all things,

To see the lovely and the unlovely without generating narrative,

Craving and aversion,

To know the breath as a breath,

The body as a body,

A sound as a sound,

The thought as a thought.

The Buddha speaks of Samadhi at times as being a journey of purification,

Which again is a word that can be very charged with reactivity and association of impurity and purity.

This is not what the Buddha means by this process of purification.

What Samadhi does as the mind begins to calm,

To settle,

To deepen in,

There's a bringing into the light of consciousness so much of what has been unconscious and buried,

And yet still powerful in generating reactivity.

We begin to see the arising and passing of patterns,

And we begin to know the unbinding from those patterns that can be so powerful and so driven and leading to distress.

We begin to be less repetitive in our reactions.

In this process of purification of everything coming into the light of consciousness,

We find ourselves less inclined to define ourselves by the contents of our minds.

On the ground of Samadhi,

We begin to cultivate clarity and the power of wise discernment,

To know what is skillful,

What is unskillful,

To know what is wholesome and what is unwholesome,

To know what leads to affliction and what leads to the end of affliction,

To know what liberates and what binds.

The clarity that is born of Samadhi,

This capacity to see clearly,

To discern clearly,

Is the beginning of the ending of distress.

Samadhi begins to liberate the mind from the grip of the hindrances,

Craving,

Aversion,

Dullness,

Agitation,

And doubt,

Patterns so powerful that we meet not only in our meditation cushion,

But that we meet in our lives.

In the next session,

I will begin to reflect upon and investigate those patterns of reactivity more fully.

The calming of the hindrance factors does not leave a vacuum.

We discover a world of sensitivity,

A capacity for wholehearted listening,

A mind that truly can think creatively,

That can contemplate and reflect,

A heart that can be responsive in all moments of meeting the world around us.

Once more,

We will continue with the exploration of developing Samadhi and collectedness.

Again,

I would invite you to pay attention to your posture,

Remembering that the body is always sending signals to the mind,

And the mind is sending signals to the body.

As much alertness,

Wakefulness,

Groundedness,

As we can cultivate in the body,

This invites the mind to also ground,

Still,

And calm,

And to be wakeful.

So finding a posture for your body where you feel supported,

An embodied intentionality of wakefulness,

Alertness,

Balance,

Softness,

Taking a moment to listen inwardly to the body of this moment,

Places where there might be holding,

Tightness,

Contractedness in your shoulders,

In your face,

In your belly,

In your hands,

And allowing those places just to soften,

Quite intentionally softening,

And appreciate the settling,

Appreciating the settling,

The befriending of the body,

The attitude of caring,

Aware how mindfulness of the body invites the mind into that environment,

That climate of care and kindness,

Of spaciousness,

Of softening,

Taking a moment to listen to the mind,

The heart of this moment.

Whatever mood,

Whatever mental state is present,

The mind feels contracted or spacious,

Or spacious,

The mind feels dull or wakeful,

Or the mind feels busy or agitated or calm,

In the midst of this body-mind of the moment,

Resetting the intention to gather,

To collect,

To know where our attention is being directed,

Mindful of the body breathing,

Or mindful,

Wholeheartedly as you can be,

Whatever object you have chosen to ground yourself within,

Breathing in with sensitivity,

Breathing out with sensitivity,

Breathing in with kindness,

Breathing out with kindness,

Breathing in with curiosity,

Breathing out with curiosity,

Just sensing the changing nature of all things,

Of body as process,

Of mind as process,

And as much as you're able to,

Just sustaining that intention to be present,

To develop a calm abiding amidst all the changes,

Amidst all the sensations,

All the thoughts,

Breathing in calming,

Breathing out calming,

Breathing in appreciating,

Breathing out appreciating,

This taste of collectedness,

Of gatheredness,

Breathing in being undiverted by the moods,

The stories,

The narratives,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Not clinging to anything,

Not taking hold of anything in mind,

In body,

In the midst of the changing landscape of mind and body,

Remembering this groundedness,

This cultivation of wholeheartedness,

Tasting the happiness,

The easefulness of a well-trained heart,

A well-trained mind,

Tasting the happiness,

The easefulness,

This unification,

This gathering of mind,

Body,

And present moment,

Appreciating the taste of calm abiding,

Sensing the possibility of deepening in that calm abiding,

In a stillness of being,

Free from agitation,

Free from busyness,

Free from confusion.

There will be many moments when your attention may be drawn to something that becomes more predominant,

A sound,

A thought,

A body sensation,

Just pausing as you're aware of those moments and just resetting the intention to be settled,

Collected within the mind,

Body of this moment,

Returning intentionally with care,

With gentleness,

Yet also with commitment to deepening and cultivating this calm abiding in the midst of all things,

Tasting the happiness found within this unification of body,

Mind,

And present moment,

In the midst of the joys and sorrows of our lives,

Feeling free to continue with the practice,

Or if you're ready to emerge,

And just emerging,

Again gently,

Clearly,

Sensing the space around you,

Not leaving the calm abiding behind.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing a deep understanding and guidance on samathi & gathering of heart mind and awareness in the meditation.

Thank you so much! I will be listening to this many times over, so helpful!