The Merit and Benefits of Dhyāna-Samādhi

Question: When sitting in meditation, my thoughts become fewer and fewer, and my mind consciousness becomes clearer and clearer. What use is this kind of inwardly abiding in leisure? If I contemplate the Dharma teachings at such a time, would it easily lead to intellectual understanding by the mind consciousness, making it impossible to attain realization in the future? After sitting until I inwardly abide in leisure, how should I apply effort?

Answer: The beneficial merits of meditative concentration (samādhi) are numerous. Growing in wisdom, eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), and seeing the mind and realizing one's nature—for most sentient beings at the stage of ordinary beings, these are the ultimate and highest beneficial merits within a short period of time. But there are other beneficial merits as well, such as inner peace and harmony, comfort and ease of body and mind, improvement of one's physical constitution, a healthy and long-lived physical body, reduction of afflictions, increase of wholesome mental states, decrease of unwholesome mental states, an increase in the wholesome karma and the neutral karma one creates and a decrease in unwholesome karma, so that in future lives one will tend toward wholesome destinies and ascend to the heavens to enjoy blessings. When one first enters meditative concentration, many people lack the power of contemplation and cannot contemplate the Buddha's teachings; the mind remains in a blank samādhi where thoughts are just budding, which is called the concentration of inwardly abiding in leisure. Of course, without contemplation one cannot awaken to the Path. However, after emerging from meditative concentration, there will be a kind of momentum—the state of concentration will continue—so that body and mind will still be more comfortable and pleasant than when one does not cultivate concentration. The mind will be deeper than usual, the power of thinking will deepen, and restlessness will diminish. Because body and mind are pleasant and full, the mind becomes wholesome, peaceful, and tranquil; in dealing with people and affairs one will be generous and kind, and the unwholesome karma one creates will decrease. When encountering matters, one contemplates them deeply and thoroughly; in handling affairs one is gentle, moderate, and not extreme; one can easily see through people, affairs, and the principles of things, and thus naturally grows in wisdom and in merit. This beneficial merit is something that a person without meditative concentration cannot compare to.

Within meditative concentration, continually train your own power of contemplation and cultivate the habit of contemplation; gradually you will be able to contemplate in accordance with reality, contemplate and practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) in accordance with the Dharma, and elevate your wisdom. However, this kind of contemplation does not necessarily lead to intellectual understanding of the Buddha's teachings. When your grasp of the framework of the Buddha's teachings is not yet clear enough, and your understanding of the Dharma teachings you have studied is not yet fluent enough, you first need the contemplation of the mind consciousness, to clarify the framework and outline of the Buddha's teachings, and thereby permeate and influence the manas, letting the manas clearly understand how the Buddha's teachings require one to cultivate, and what kind of effort is needed to realize the Buddha's teachings. Once this foundation is laid, when the time comes for final realization, the meditative concentration will have deepened and fulfilled the preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi). At this point, the deliberation (manasikāra) of the manas should be primary, with the mind consciousness assisting the manas—doing less thinking, analysis, reasoning, and other such activities of emotional thought and intellectual interpretation—and letting the manas as much as possible investigate and weigh things on its own. Only in this way can one reach final realization and avoid intellectual understanding by the mind consciousness. This is the sequence and method of practice for the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā. Once you have mastered it, practice makes perfect; when the skill becomes firm, in future lives you will also avoid the false mode of practice that is mere intellectual understanding by the mind consciousness, and will obtain the true benefit of the Buddha's teachings.