Mental concentration (Samādhi):
Right
Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration:
Right
Effort
Right
effort provides a preliminary step towards the proper mental concentration. It
consists of four kinds of effort (cattāro sammappadhāna)
motivated by the will power (chandam janeti, viriyam ārabhati).[1]
The four kinds of effort are enumerated as follows:
Effort
to prevent the arising of unskillful states of mind
Effort
to overcome unskillful states already arisen in the mind
Effort
to produce skillful states already not arisen in the mind
Effort
to develop skillful states already arisen in the mind.
This
right effort provides the necessary background for the concentration of the
mind by increasing wholesome or skillful states, such as non-greed, non-hatred
and non-ignorance, and by reducing unwholesome or unskillful states, such as
greed, hatred and ignorance.
Right
mindfulness
Right
mindfulness or attentiveness is a further conducive step, which facilitates
development of one pointedness of the mind, by paying diligent attention to
mental and physical phenomena, which come under four bases of mindfulness,
namely, activities of body (kāya),
feelings (vedanā),
activities of mind (citta), and ideas
and some dharmic points (dhamma).
This same right mindfulness comes to be known as mindful-clear awareness (sati-sampajañña) in some
discourses.[2]
In the Sāmaññaphala-sutta
of Dighanikāya, the Buddha explained the way how a
monk practices mindful-clear awareness in the following manner:
‘And
how, Sire, is a monk accomplished in mindfulness and clear awareness? Here a
monk acts with clear awareness in going forth and back, in looking ahead and
behind him, in bending and stretching, in wearing his outer and inner robe, and
carrying his bowl, in eating, drinking, chewing and swallowing, in evacuating
and urinating, in walking, standing, sitting, lying down, in waking, in
speaking and in keeping silent, he acts with clear awareness.’[3]
Right Concentration
The
last factor of the path, right concentration is an attempt to make possible,
mind to concentrate by removing five impediments (panca nivarana), which
are known as sensual lust (kāmacchanda),
ill will (vyāpāda),
sloth-and-torpor (thīnamiddha),
worry-and-flurry (uddhacca-kukkucha),
and skeptical doubt (vicikicchā).
These impediments are considered to be the factors of weakening the wisdom (pañnāya dubbalīkarane).
Close attention towards a meditation object makes possible the removal of the
impediments or hindrance from the mind, and as a result, there arises deep
calmness in the mind, which generates trances (jhanās)
belonging to both fine material (rūpāvacara)
and immaterial (arūpāvacara)
planes.
Right
concentration is the crucial factor for achieving the aim or the end of the
path. The aim of the Eight Noble Path is to realize the emancipation of
suffering through knowing and seeing (ñāna-dassana)
or in other words, insight knowledge (paññā). Concentrated mind is
said to be purified and cleansed, unblemished, free from impurities, malleable,
flexible and established. All these qualities of the mind are necessary for
directing the mind towards the knowing and seeing the reality.
From: Prof. Kapila Abhayawansa
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