Samatha Meditation

The art of Returning, is to turn the mind inward toward its own inherent nature; calm, open, vibrant, concentrated, present and mindful.

It is the nature of the senses to project into the world and to stimulate the thinking functions of the mind into a constantly active and dualistic view of our external and internal experience. The mind tends to roll constantly in thought and reaction, rarely resting, generally wild, endlessly conceptualising. This state is highly conditioned, habitual and ignorant of its own nature.

Samatha Meditation teaches the mind to return to its original ground free from external conditions and internal wondering in thoughts and dreams. It becomes still, vibrant, calm, abiding in essential essence, peaceful, tranquil, clear like a mirror, capable of true seeing.

Samatha is an ancient practice and probably the root of all forms of Meditation. It stabilizes the mind. If the mind cannot be still its nature cannot be realized and Meditation cannot occur, Samatha is generally translated as calm abiding or tranquillity.

We train not to stop the mind but to curb the automatic thinking functions of the mind and for the mind to become present to itself, to rest in its own nature. This is the first major stabilization in Meditation, basic absorption. As the mind becomes concentrated in its own essence it gives rise to Vipassana, Insight Meditation, the art of true seeing.

Samatha and Vipassana are the two sides of one coin, the currency and ground of Meditation. Samatha is a directed form of meditation to calm and concentrate the mind where Vipassana gives rise to insight and the development of wisdom, the pathway to freedom.

"Awareness becomes palpable
as we live our lives from
the core of our being
free from fear and hatred."

Vippasana Meditation

The Art of true seeing, is to see clearly internal and external arising conditions in present time as they really are.

It is very rare due to our conditioned mental states of conceptualizing, reactivity, addictive and karmic tendencies to perceive with any real degree of clarity and presence. Vipassana develops the ability to apply bare attention to all conditions arising at our sense doorways. With the peaceful concentrated mind of Samatha we observe body sensation, mental feeling tones {emotions} and mental and Qi phenomena of all kinds.

Gradually our awareness deepens from gross to subtle, to very subtle and equanimous {mental composure}. We become less and less reactive, able to feel and perceive with clarity and sublimation, our perception refines and purifies. In this field of calm and peaceful openness we gain insight into all levels of existence, we begin to understand the nature of embodiment and the extraordinary characteristics of all mental and bodily formations, the impermanance and the selfless and formless nature of our of reality.

We move towards and begin to inhabit with consciousness the formless state from which all life arises, awareness becomes palpable as we live our lives from the core of our being free from fear and hatred. Vipassana is one of the major meditative contributions developed by and introduced to the world by Gotama the Buddha. Along with Samatha it is the primary meditation technique practiced across the Buddhist world, although the styles of these techniques can be varied in different Buddhist groups, they are fundamentally rooted in the same principle. As bare meditative techniques they are designed to explore the nature of the mind and as such are free from belief and religious indoctrination.