How to Distinguish Between Non-Buddhist Samadhi and Buddhist Samadhi

Meditative concentration is a practice and realization common to all sentient beings, a state of concentration shared by non-Buddhist paths and Buddhist practitioners alike, exhibiting no difference in its characteristics, yet bearing significant distinctions in its function.

The difference lies in the fact that within non-Buddhist meditative concentration, there are no activities of thinking, contemplation, meditative observation, inquiry, and other mental processes. Consequently, the wisdom of non-self cannot arise, and liberation cannot be attained. However, proper concentration within the Buddhist path necessarily involves activities of thinking, contemplation, and inquiry, through which the corresponding liberating wisdom arises. If a Buddhist practitioner's concentration consistently remains solely in a state of stillness without any activities of thinking and contemplation, it belongs to the category of non-Buddhist concentration.

Generally speaking, the concentration cultivated by most Buddhist practitioners is largely similar to non-Buddhist concentration. Only in the later stages, when thinking and contemplative activities arise within concentration, does it become a form of concentration not shared with non-Buddhist paths. Therefore, every Buddhist practitioner need not reject non-Buddhist concentration or any form of meditative absorption, as long as they can ultimately utilize various concentrations to give rise to correct liberating wisdom. This is the fundamental purpose of cultivating concentration.