How to Distinguish Non-Buddhist Meditation from Buddhist Meditation

Meditative concentration (dhyāna and samādhi) is something cultivated and realized in common by all sentient beings; it is the concentration shared by all non-Buddhist paths and by Buddhist practitioners. In its characteristics there is no difference, but in its function there is a great difference.

The difference lies in this: within the concentration of non-Buddhist paths, there is no thinking, no contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), no contemplative cultivation, no investigation (canjiu), or other such mental activities; consequently, the wisdom of no-self cannot arise, and liberation cannot be attained. Whereas in proper concentration within the Buddha's gate, there must be thinking, contemplative practice, and investigative activity, through which the corresponding wisdom of liberation can arise. If a Buddhist practitioner's concentration is always spent entirely within samādhi, without any thinking or contemplative activity, it belongs to the concentration of non-Buddhist paths.

Generally speaking, the concentration cultivated by most Buddhist practitioners is shared in common with the concentration of non-Buddhist paths; only at a later stage, when thinking and contemplative cultivation arise within samādhi, does it become concentration not shared with non-Buddhists. Therefore, every Buddhist practitioner need not reject the concentration of non-Buddhist paths, nor any form of dhyāna or samādhi, so long as in the end one can use various states of concentration to give rise to correct wisdom of liberation. This is the fundamental purpose of cultivating concentration.