How to Distinguish Non-Buddhist Samādhi from Buddhist Samādhi

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

The difference lies in this: within non-Buddhist concentration, there is no deliberation (manasikāra), no contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), no contemplative cultivation, no investigation (canqiu), and so on—no such mental activities. Consequently, the wisdom of no-self cannot arise, and liberation cannot be attained. Whereas in the proper concentration within the Buddha's gate, there must be deliberation, contemplative practice, and investigative activity, through which the corresponding wisdom of liberation can be born. If a Buddhist practitioner's concentration is always spent entirely within samādhi, without deliberation or contemplative practice, then it belongs to non-Buddhist concentration.

Generally speaking, the concentration cultivated by most Buddhist practitioners is shared in common with non-Buddhist concentration; only at a later stage, when deliberation and contemplative cultivation arise within samādhi, does it become concentration not shared with non-Buddhists. Therefore, every Buddhist practitioner need not reject non-Buddhist concentration, or any form of meditative concentration, so long as in the end one can use the various states of concentration to give birth to correct wisdom of liberation—that is the fundamental purpose of cultivating concentration.