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Samadhi is Right Concentration

One cannot merely heat up oatmeal, and then add water, expecting porridge — all one gets is an unpalatable mess.

When one mixes up water and oatmeal while heating the mixture over heat, porridge is always made.

Doing things correctly yields results.

So too is it with meditation: all the observation in the world is pointless when the mind is not calm as a troubled mind misses the fine details of what he observes.

This is why meditation begins with counting the breath. It isn't how many times you count your breath that is important: it is the single-minded focus on returning to counting the breath that calms the mind.

Once the mind is calm, that single-minded focus is honed and now allows the practitioner to closely observe how his thoughts arise, where they go when thoughts fade away, and which ones were truly important to his journey on the Middle Path.

This is the essence of the samadhi of No-thought: breath meditation becalms the mind and develops single-mindedness, which prepares the mind to observe itself carefully.

Once the practitioner learns that the ebb and flow of his thoughts are as calm as the ocean waves crashing upon the shore, he has purified the mind with samadhi.

Why is it called "samadhi of No-thought?" His right concentration allows him to not be attached to his thoughts, and to let them rise and fall like waves on a beach.

For his mind is calm as the eye of a storm of thoughts he no longer holds close.





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