A Conversation About Buddhism
Author: Anup Poudyal
Publisher: The Middle Way Publications
Edition: Authorised Machine-Accessible Edition
Section: Chapter 11
Chapter Title: Right Samādhi: Part One
Copyright: © 2026 Anup Poudyal. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER TEXT

CHAPTER 11: RIGHT SAMĀDHI: PART ONE

Author’s Note 11.1

We now arrive at the final factor of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right Samādhi. Its position at the end is deliberate. Throughout the Buddha’s teaching, this factor appears not as an isolated practice but as the natural culmination of the path as a whole. Everything explored so far: understanding, resolve, conduct, effort, and mindfulness, serves to prepare the conditions in which samādhi can arise.

At the level of ordinary experience, samādhi brings a sense of unification and stillness. The mind gathers, distractions fall quiet, and a stable ease becomes present. This collectedness has its own value. It is calming, restorative, and deeply satisfying. Yet within the Dhamma, samādhi is not described as the final goal. It is the condition that allows insight to do its work.

At a deeper level, when samādhi is well established, the mind becomes clear enough to see through confusion. From this clarity, awakening may occur. The tradition speaks of the realisation of nibbāna, the ending of dukkha,

and the dissolution of self-identity. These are not separate attainments but different ways of describing the same event from different angles.

It helps to see samādhi not as something produced by effort but as something that forms when conditions are aligned. Ethical conduct, steady effort, and continuous mindfulness shape the ground. Samādhi appears when that ground is ready. Awakening itself is not caused by samādhi, but revealed through it. The stillness prepares the mind; seeing liberates.

For a long time, I confused samādhi with awakening. When I encountered descriptions of deep stillness and absorption in the Buddhist texts, it felt natural to assume that such states were the final realisation. The ease and clarity felt complete. Only later did it become clear that samādhi is a state the mind enters, whereas awakening is a way of seeing that does not come and go.

This chapter turns toward understanding samādhi itself. The chapters that follow will explore how the basis for samādhi is cultivated and how insight emerges when the mind is ready. What matters most here is not striving for an experience, but learning to recognise when the ground has been prepared.

Question 1

With this foundation in place, let us now examine Right Samādhi more closely as it appears in the Buddha’s own training and teachings. How does the practice of samādhi actually unfold when understanding, intention, ethical conduct, effort, and mindfulness are sufficiently established?

In the early texts, several practices are repeatedly associated with the cultivation of collectedness and clarity. These do not all function at the same stage or in the same way. Some stabilise the mind early on, others refine attention as practice deepens, and others become relevant only when the mind is already well gathered.

Among these are:

1. Ānāpānasati: mindfulness of breathing

2. Walking meditation: mindfulness of posture and movement

3. Vipassanā: clear seeing of experience as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self

4. The four jhānas: unification of mind

5. The formless attainments: refinement and attenuation of perception and identification

Despite understanding that samādhi unfolds naturally when the supporting conditions are in place, I notice that my mind still slips into comparison. It begins to weigh different techniques against one another, to look for an ideal sequence, or wonder whether there is a faster or more efficient way.

So to clarify the question: if samādhi is not something to be forced, how does it actually unfold in lived practice? Does the Buddha describe a pattern or progression in the way calm and collectedness mature, or is any sense of sequence itself something that must be held lightly as the path develops?

Answer

When the Buddha speaks of Right Samādhi, he does not present it as a technique to be mastered or a state to seize. He presents it as something that unfolds when the supporting causes are sufficiently mature. This is why much of the confusion around samādhi arises not from misunderstanding meditation itself, but from misunderstanding readiness.

A recurring human tendency is to compare methods, search for shortcuts, or assume there must be a single, universally best sequence. The suttas quietly undermine this tendency. Rather than offering a rigid ladder, the Buddha consistently points to conditional development: when certain qualities are present, deeper collectedness becomes possible; when they are absent, forcing stillness leads to strain, imbalance, or self-deception.

What the texts do show very clearly is a gradual shaping of the mind before deep samādhi is even appropriate. Ethical stability comes first, not as moral decoration but because agitation, remorse, and self-justification make unification impossible. This is followed by sense restraint, which reduces the mind’s constant outward leakage of attention and emotional reactivity. From there, mindfulness is trained not only in sitting, but in posture, movement, and ordinary activity, so that awareness becomes continuous rather than episodic. Only when the mind is already relatively steady, embodied, and unfragmented does sustained collectedness have a natural basis.

Rather than forming a strict ladder, the Buddha presents these practices as a functional ecology: each becomes relevant when particular conditions are present, and each supports the others in different ways. Within this ecology, different practices serve distinct functions.

• Ānāpānasati and walking meditation stabilise attention and balance

energy, training the mind to remain present without strain in both stillness and movement.

- Vipassanā clarifies experience by revealing impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self, and helps prevent attachment to calm or pleasant states.

- jhāna represents the deepening unification of mind that arises when ethical stability, seclusion, and mental maturity are already established.

- The formless attainments refine this unification further, attenuating identification and perception when the mind is exceptionally subtle and steady.

These are complementary capacities that become relevant at different phases of development.

This also helps explain why his teaching method was adaptive rather than formulaic. At times, he encouraged seclusion and deep absorption;

at other times, he explicitly discouraged it, directing practitioners back to ethical training, sense restraint, or mindfulness of daily activity. This was not inconsistency but discernment. Deep stillness amplifies whatever structure the mind already has. If that structure is unstable, premature absorption may entrench confusion rather than dissolve it.

So the answer to whether samādhi follows a sequence is not straightforward. There is a recognisable pattern of maturation in the suttas, but it is not a mechanical ladder with guarantees. Each stage supports the next, yet none of them automatically produces it. The sequence is conditional, responsive, and deeply personal, shaped by causes rather than forced by will.

Seen this way, Right Samādhi is neither accidental nor something that can be produced through force. It unfolds when the mind has been trained to stop scattering itself, remain present without strain, and meet experience without grasping or resistance. Understanding this balance, a sequence without rigidity, is essential for practising samādhi in the way the Buddha taught it.

Question 2

That explanation makes it clear why clinging to a rigid practice sequence or comparing techniques can become a distraction rather than a support. With that caution in mind, I would like to look more closely at the jhānas and the formless attainments themselves.

Before turning to the deeper conceptual tensions they raise, I want

to understand what the Buddha is actually pointing to at the level of lived experience. The texts describe the four jhānas as states of profound happiness, ease, and unification that arise without reliance on the senses. This happiness does not come from seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, or imagining, nor does it resemble ordinary bodily or mental pleasure. Yet it is repeatedly described as more refined, stable, and reliable than any form of sensory joy. I find this difficult to imagine, and I would like to understand it more clearly.

Could you explain, using sutta-based descriptions where possible, what characterises each of the four jhānas, how the quality of happiness and stillness changes across them, and why the Buddha regarded them as such powerful states of collectedness without treating them as liberation?

Likewise, could you describe the four formless attainments as they appear in the discourses, not as abstract categories but as lived modes of experience the mind can enter as perception becomes increasingly subtle?

Answer

The Buddha speaks about the jhānas and the formless attainments in a precise and non-speculative way. He does not ask the practitioner to imagine them

in advance or grasp them conceptually, but to recognise their qualities when the supporting conditions are present. What makes them difficult to imagine is precisely what makes them distinctive: they are not extensions of ordinary pleasure, thought, or imagination, but refinements that emerge when the mind is no longer feeding on the senses.

The Four Jhānas: Refinement of Happiness and Unification

In the suttas, the jhānas are presented as progressive refinements of collectedness, ease, and clarity that arise when the mind is secluded from unwholesome states and no longer scattered by sensory engagement. The happiness they contain is not produced by stimulation, fantasy, or bodily contact, but by the unification of mind itself.

1. In the first jhāna, the mind has withdrawn from sense desire and agitation, but a subtle movement of attention remains. The mind deliberately settles on the chosen meditation object, such as the breath, and continues to hold it there. The happiness here has an energised, almost exhilarating quality, traditionally described as rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. It is remarkable because it does not depend

on getting anything, but on the mind no longer being pulled apart.

2. In the second jhāna, applied and sustained thinking falls silent. The mind no longer needs to ‘do’ anything to stay unified. Confidence and inner coherence replace effort. The happiness becomes steadier and more pervasive, less exciting and more self-sufficient, as if the mind is resting in itself.

3. In the third jhāna, rapture fades, not because something is lost but because it is seen as coarse. What remains is a quiet, embodied happiness accompanied by equanimity and clear awareness. The pleasure here is calm, balanced, and deeply content, free from uplift or agitation.

4. In the fourth jhāna, even pleasant feelings are relinquished. What remains is pure equanimity and mindfulness, often described as a bright, steady clarity. The mind is fully unified, utterly undisturbed, and no longer leaning toward pleasure or away from pain.

Across these four, happiness does not increase by becoming more intense, but by becoming more stable, subtle, and independent. The Buddha regarded these states as powerful because they gather the mind completely and temporarily suspend habits of craving and aversion. Yet he did not treat them as liberation because they are conditioned states. They arise, persist for a time, and pass away. Without insight, attachment to their refinement can quietly rebuild identification.

The Formless Attainments: Subtlety Beyond the Body

The four formless attainments are described in the discourses as further refinements of collectedness that become accessible beyond the fourth jhāna. They arise when the mind no longer attends to the perception of form, but shifts to subtler objects. In this sense, they are not new techniques, but changes in what the unified mind attends to.

1. The base of infinite space begins when perception of the body and physical boundaries fades and attention opens to boundlessness. The experience is expansive and simple, marked less by any specific object than by the absence of form.

2. The base of infinite consciousness follows when the mind recognises that awareness itself is more subtle than space. Attention shifts from what is known to knowing itself, experienced as boundless and continuous.

3. The base of nothingness appears when even the perception of boundless knowing is seen as too much. The mind inclines toward the absence of anything to attend to, leaving a quiet sense of nothingness that is clear rather than dull.

4. The base of neither perception nor non-perception arises when perception becomes so refined that it is no longer clearly identifiable, yet is not entirely absent. This is the most delicate mode of experience described in the discourses, poised at the edge of discernibility.

5. The cessation of perception and feeling is sometimes mentioned after the four formless attainments, and can easily be misunderstood. In

this state, the processes of perception and feeling temporarily cease altogether. Experience does not continue in a subtle form; rather, the usual mental activities that register and interpret it are completely stilled. When the practitioner later emerges, perception and feeling resume.

The Buddha includes this state in discussions of advanced meditation because it reveals the mind’s capacity for complete stilling. Yet the ending of suffering does not depend on entering this attainment. Liberation is known through insight into the nature of experience, not through the temporary disappearance of experience.

The Role of Jhāna and the Formless Attainments

The Buddha speaks highly of these attainments, but he does not mistake them for liberation. He acknowledges their extraordinary stillness and subtlety, but repeatedly emphasises that they too are conditioned and impermanent. They do not end suffering on their own. Their value lies in how quiet and malleable the mind becomes within them, which can support deep insight when wisdom is present, or reinforce subtle attachment when it is not.

Taken together, the jhānas and the formless attainments are not escapes from the world or mystical fantasies, but lived modes of unification that reveal how happiness can exist without grasping. They show what the mind is capable of when it stops feeding on the senses, and prepare the ground for insight without ever replacing it.

Question 3

We have seen that practice can refine experience into progressively subtler modes of awareness. My confusion now is not about the experiences themselves but about how the early discourses describe the formless.

Sometimes the texts describe the formless as ‘spheres’ of experience, such as infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. In those passages, they read as meditative domains that are entered and known in the mind.

At other times, the discourses speak of ‘worlds’ or ‘realms’, and even describe encounters with living beings associated with those domains. In those passages, it can sound as if the same formless states are also realms of existence rather than merely inner experiences.

How do the early discourses relate these two ways of speaking? When the texts shift between ‘sphere of experience’ language and ‘realm of existence’ language, what is the most careful way to read that shift in the discourses’ own terms?

Answer

A careful reading of the early discourses suggests a functional distinction rather than a contradiction.

‘Sphere of experience’ (āyatana) language refers to perceptual capacity: how experience is structured and known by the mind. When the Buddha speaks of the arūpa āyatanas, he is describing refinements of awareness that can be entered and directly experienced in this life. These are modes of knowing in which perception becomes progressively subtler, eventually approaching its own limits.

‘Realm of existence’ (loka) language, by contrast, refers to domains of existence: fields in which living beings dwell and interact. When the suttas speak of arūpa lokas, the emphasis shifts from how experience is known to where higher beings are situated and how contact with them occurs.

What the suttas do not claim is that refined perception automatically grants movement within those domains. Instead, they imply a distinction between two capacities:

- Refined perception, which allows one to know or perceive subtle domains.

- Supernormal abilities (iddhi), which allow one to appear in, move within, or interact with living beings in those realms.

Contrasts among the disciples support this distinction. Some awakened disciples are portrayed as possessing profound clarity and insight, yet lacking the power to move between realms. Others are described as possessing both. The

texts treat these as distinct attainments, not as automatic consequences of one another.

An analogy may help. Refining perception is like gaining the ability

to see infrared. One can perceive infrared phenomena here and now. But travelling to an environment that exists entirely within that spectrum requires additional capability. Perception alone does not grant movement within it.

The careful stance, grounded in the early discourses, is therefore

to recognise the distinction between āyatana and loka, acknowledge their connection, and accept that the precise mechanics of that connection are left unexplained.

Question 4

That explanation felt complete enough. Rather than extending the discussion through further speculation, let us move on.

Alongside the training we have already discussed, I have noticed several other practices in the suttas whose role within the overall path is less clear to me. The Buddha often taught meditation on love and kindness, the contemplation of the thirty-two parts of the body, and the cemetery contemplations involving bodies at various stages of decay. Some of these practices feel immediately accessible, while others feel strange or even confronting. For example, why would the Buddha recommend contemplating a decaying corpse as part of mental training?

This leaves me with a practical question about function rather than classification. Are these practices part of Right Samādhi itself, or do they sit alongside the main sequence as supporting or preparatory trainings? How do these practices contribute to collectedness and clarity? And why do they appear to stand apart from the more familiar progression of breath, insight, jhāna, formless states, and liberating understanding?

Are there other practices the Buddha taught that do not appear as core steps in the standard presentation of the path?

Answer

The practices you mention do appear throughout the suttas, yet they do not belong to the core sequence of Right Samādhi. Instead, they function as optional but powerful supporting practices. They are remedies, stabilisers, and clarifiers that strengthen specific faculties of the mind depending on a practitioner’s temperament. The Buddha did not teach a single universal method

for everyone. Instead, he provided a flexible range of practices, knowing that different minds require different medicines.

The Brahmavihāras

As mentioned earlier, the Buddha also taught a group of practices known as the brahmavihāras, often translated as the ‘divine abodes’ or ‘sublime states’. These are four qualities that shape how we relate to other beings and gradually refine the emotional life. They are loving-kindness (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), appreciative joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā). When cultivated, these qualities soften the heart, weaken ill will and envy, and help settle the mind.

The brahmavihāras do not replace meditation or concentration. Instead, they prepare the ground for it. When these attitudes are cultivated, harshness, resentment, and jealousy lose their grip, and the mind becomes naturally warmer and more spacious. In that environment, concentration comes more easily. In this way, the brahmavihāras quietly support and deepen the unification of mind.

Over time, as they deepen and are combined with strong collectedness, they can mature into powerful bases for samādhi. In early discourses, the brahmavihāras are described as leading to the radiant stillness of the form jhānas and, when fully developed, even to the ‘heart’s release’ associated with the immaterial spheres, such as infinite space, infinite consciousness, and nothingness. When insight is then brought to bear on these refined states, seeing them as impermanent, conditioned, and not-self, the same cultivated heart that began with kindness and compassion can become a direct foundation for liberating wisdom and, ultimately, release.

Contemplation of the Thirty-Two Parts of the Body

The contemplation of the thirty-two parts of the body is a grounding practice. It reduces infatuation with the body, steadies desire, and brings the attention inward. It is not meant to be morbid, but realistic. When the body is understood as a natural collection of organic elements, the mind loses the instinct to cling to it or build an identity around it. This clears the ground for samādhi by reducing restlessness and sensual desire.

Cemetery Contemplations

Cemetery contemplations serve an even sharper purpose. They confront the mind with the truth of impermanence in its most undeniable form. In the Buddha’s time, people lived in close proximity to death. Seeing a body at

different stages of decay was not shocking; it was honest. The point is not to create fear or disgust, but to cut through the illusion of permanence. When the mind can look directly at impermanence without flinching or collapsing into emotion, it becomes extremely steady. That steadiness deepens samādhi and prepares the mind for insight.

These practices do not sit inside the main sequence of ānāpānasati, vipassanā, jhāna, formless attainments, and liberating knowledge. Instead, they function alongside it as specialised tools. They purify particular hindrances, sharpen specific faculties, and stabilise the mind in unique ways. Some practitioners may find them essential. Others may never need them. That flexibility is entirely in harmony with the early Buddhist approach.

So the question is not where to fit them in the sequence, but when

to use them. If desire is strong, contemplation of the body is appropriate. If emotional heaviness arises, the brahmavihāras lighten the mind. If complacency or denial of impermanence appears, cemetery contemplations provide a clear mirror. When these supports are used skilfully, they make the pathway into samādhi more natural and the pathway into insight more direct.

This brings us back to a question raised earlier: apart from those mentioned above, are there practices in the early Buddhist texts that support samādhi without belonging to the central meditative sequence?

The early discourses suggest that there are, and they play a quiet yet essential role in preparing the mind for stillness.

Mindfulness of the Four Elements

One key example is mindfulness of the four elements. The Buddha often instructed meditators to observe the body not as ‘my body’, but as earth, water, fire, and wind. This is a powerful way of weakening identification with the body, and it also stabilises attention. When the body is experienced simply as texture, temperature, movement, or cohesion, the mind becomes less reactive and more willing to rest quietly. This makes the transition into jhāna smoother.

Food, Sense Restraint, and Moderation in Sleep

Another practice is the contemplation of food, sense restraint, and moderation in sleep. These are practical yet deeply psychological disciplines. The Buddha frequently emphasised that the mind cannot settle if the body is overstimulated or overburdened. Wise moderation in eating, seeing, hearing, speaking, and resting is therefore not mere monastic discipline. It is an essen-

tial support for concentration because it reduces the agitation that prevents unification.

Mindfulness of Death

Mindfulness of death (maraṇasati) is another important support practice. It involves quietly recollecting the simple fact that death is certain, its timing uncertain, and that this very breath could be the last. This reflection is kept gentle and factual, without imagination or drama, allowing awareness to sharpen and settle into the present moment. This should not be confused with cemetery contemplations or graphic reflections on bodily decay. Maraṇasati works through clarity and urgency rather than imagery.

Recollection of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha

There is also the recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha. These recollections uplift the heart, restore confidence, and bring clarity when the mind becomes dull or discouraged. They remind the practitioner that the path is not theoretical but has been lived and realised by real human beings. The Buddha and the early Saṅgha embodied the highest standards of ethics, restraint, and integrity, and this visible consistency between teaching and conduct built deep trust among young monks and householders alike. That trust matters. When faith (saddhā) is strong, doubt weakens, effort steadies, and the mind becomes more willing to settle.

In all these cases, the practices do not replace ānāpānasati, vipassanā, jhāna, or the formless realms. They prepare the ground. They clear obstacles, strengthen wholesome states, and bring the mind closer to the stillness needed for deep concentration to arise.

Author’s Note 11.2

This chapter has focused entirely on the theory of Right Samādhi. We examined the technical language, clarified the meanings of key terms, and outlined the practice for this final limb of the Noble Eightfold Path. These foundations matter because samādhi is subtle. Without a clear conceptual framework, practice can easily become misunderstood or forced in ways that lead nowhere.

The next chapter may appear similar to this one, as it covers famil-

iar territory. Its purpose, however, is entirely different. In this chapter, we explored what Right Samādhi is and how its conditions are established. In the chapter that follows, we turn from explanation to application, from under-

standing to lived practice. Theory offers the map. Practice is the journey itself.