Audio (TCP7, Day 10): Nine Stages, Stage Six (Śamayati), Śamatha-Vipaśyanā Northern and Southern Schools

A talk comparing northern (Mahayana) and southern (Theravada) approaches to śamatha-vipaśyanā (calm abiding and insight), and introducing the sixth stage of śamatha, śamayati (pacifying), followed by a self-guided silent sit. Explores emptiness, non-self, and dwelling happily in the present moment.

Sakya tradition · IBA Kathmandu · The Complete Path (TCP) 2026 · English · Talk + silent sit

For the full Sanskrit/Pali/Tibetan glossary and nine-stages reference table, see the Glossary and Summary for Morning Meditations.

Transcript

Good morning, dear friends. Welcome back to our morning meditation sessions here at the International Buddhist Academy, Tinchuli Kathmandu for the complete path course 2026. We continue in our journey of exploring the śamatha vipaśyanā, calm and inside, stopping and looking deeply.

We began our journey with the understanding that for the northern schools, śamatha and vipaśyanā are very often together.

Whereas in the transmission of the teachings of the southern schools that has come down to us to the present day, we often find a separation between the stopping, the calming of the twisting and turning of the thinking mind as a necessary condition for the arising of insight and therefore requiring us to master that śamatha before we begin the process of insight meditation.

But it seems clear that the Buddha himself taught different ways of seeing this, that we can practice śamatha and then vipaśyanā. We can practice vipaśyanā and then śamatha as is popular in some of the Burmese schools and we can practice śamatha and vipaśyanā together. And there is also a beautiful example of perhaps the Buddha’s somewhat dry sense of humor.

There is even a way of practicing with neither śamatha. And in the sutra that I’m thinking of, his name escapes me for now, but I will look for it so I can share it with you.

The Buddha seems to be pointing out that kind of situation where one gets quite excited by one’s progress on the path, some feeling of calm perhaps arising or some sense of insight arising and rather than continuing in mindfulness of the object or analysis, one gets caught in thoughts about this small attainment and loses the object completely.

And in this case the Buddha is suggesting that we are practicing neither śamatha nor vipaśyanā. We are getting caught in a story about śamatha and vipaśyanā. But in his kindness he recognizes that this is also a gateway if we can satisfy one condition. What is that condition? Do you think mindfulness and awareness?

If we can be aware that this is happening, that the mind has become caught in an idea, then that too is an opening, a way in for us to start to see what is really happening here. So in some sense we began at the beginning with the first stage, simply placing the mind with the object. We continued with the longer placing, the replacing, the thorough placing.

But we can also perhaps take a more tantric approach. We can start also at the end, perhaps turning our minds to what is the goal? What is the point of all of this placing and replacing and close placing, even taming the stage that we reached in our last session dealing with the nine stages? What is the quality of relationship to experience that is being invited here? What are we cultivating?

Awareness in relation to what? Awareness of wisdom. What is the content of that wisdom? In some sense, perhaps we can understand the teachings of the Buddha in the Southern schools, the Pali tradition, perhaps working as the Buddha was at that time in the context of North Indian philosophy and practice which really emphasized purity.

Purity and impurity, the Vedic understanding of a truth beyond understanding which is pure enduring, which each of us somehow shares in some spark in our being. And the journey of reuniting with that spark, being one of recognizing impurity and finding that purity. So we can see the Buddha’s early teachings as often working to untangle just what is that purity and impurity in regards to this being?

Not being caught so much in outer impurity, but recognizing how the mind creates that in regard to this person, this being. But we can perhaps see already in those early teachings a hint, a signpost to where these teachings would eventually lead practitioners.

Perhaps once the Buddha had laid that groundwork, allowing the opening of that doorway into seeing that that role of the mind in regard to creating illusion of something permanent here to grasp in this person also applies outside that exactly the same logic can be applied to all phenomena.

That there is not only no person to grasp but also no shrine room, no tables and chairs, no forest and trees and even no Buddha that we can pin down a separately existing because everything that we witness has a much deeper life, if you like, than just the labels that I put on that thing.

And the Buddha was already pointing to this truth in recognizing the doors of liberation as not only not-self, anātman but also the impermanence of those phenomenon that they are constantly changing, arising, passing, arising, passing and that their true nature is not something we can grasp when the mind is caught in labels in trying to freeze or freeze frame the world, our experience, into discrete objects.

We miss the truth of process that is going on, this constant arising. And so in some important sense, whereas the path of meditation in the Southern school emphasizes arriving at the insight that this person here is just like the outside objects. Arising and passing. Here we are recognizing that every object itself has a true nature beyond the understanding that clings to signs, not just this self.

And so the last stage Samādhāna, dengchi [等持 děngchí, “even-holding” — Chinese gloss for stage nine, confirmed against the CH translator recording for this same session], stage nine, samadhatte or samādhāna is balanced placement. Some in samadhi the same origin as actually our arithmetical term for summing, for bringing together, perfecting, making whole, and this sense of placing.

So samadhi can be thought of as a perfect placement. But if we are to unpack and try to map this system of nine stages onto the Buddha’s instructions for meditation emphasizing the eight attainments, jhāna, we might be tempted to think over this eight there, nine if we include access concentration. So these nine stages are kind of the same.

Actually, it’s a very different map, but one that leads us to a similar place in one important way. Actually stage eight is single pointedness. So there seems to be good reason to understand these nine stages as bringing us into samadhi, into a continuous absorbed connection with one object.

But where the road begins to fork is in the understanding of how one should be placing one’s mind with the object in a system that separates śamatha and vipaśyanā. That single pointedness is fixed on the object, absorbed. Jhāna is absorption, fixation with the object.

But if our intention is to be able to relate to any object, any object that presents itself to the mind, to the sense, to us, and that recognises that it does not exist from its own side, as we might grasp at it based on its sign, the mind needs to be unfixed, very flexible, able to flow, adapt to many, many different kinds of situation, many different kinds of arising both inside and outside.

So that perfect placement perhaps shifted to mean a mind that is perfectly balanced in relationship to any phenomenon, not just fixed on the meditation object. And this is where we meet a beautiful term, and I apologise for not putting this into vocabulary. So we’ll see how we go. Dṛṣṭa-dharma-sukha-vihāra. Dwelling happily in the present moment is how Thich Nhat Hanh translates this term.

We can also unpack this, we can start at the end, vihara, same. Like the monastery, the dwelling place, like the satipaṭṭhāna refrain, viharati abhijjhā-domanassaṃ, dwelling without grasping or pushing away. So dwelling. Vihāra. Sukha, not duḥkha. Contentment, happiness. Dharma, small t, phenomena. And drishti, like in the yoga tradition, dṛṣṭi is the gaze or the perspective.

So we can maybe translate this loosely as dwelling in contentment with regards to all phenomena, not just on the cushion, but also off the cushion.

And so if this is the aim for the bodhisattva, meaning that rather than needing to stay in isolation in the forest, in order to experience calm and ease, the calm and ease is something that arises from its own side in regards to all aspects of our experience.

And without making perhaps the error of assuming that, in this case, among the arahants, there were no bodhisattvas, none who could dwell in contentment with regards to all phenomena. I think it’s fairly safe to say that there were many bodhisattvas. But it’s maybe a question of emphasis, and a question of what was appropriate to the time to emphasize.

Perhaps it was too radical, this understanding of the nature of purity and impurity, perhaps it was too radical yet at the time of the Buddha’s teaching in his lifetime. So he taught about purity and impurity in a way that was accessible, that made sense, that allowed the flourishing of the saṅgha.

But in our time, we have many great teachers emphasizing this other way to see that actually we can cultivate a mind that is at ease in any situation. And maybe with the emphasis on practicing not just for our own benefit, this is why this practice is such a wonderful one for the times in which we live. And so how does one reach this state?

Well, it seems that it is through a very similar process, but one that perhaps practices from the beginning already this wise attention, recognizing that the way we bring the object into the mind is very important for how we then react and respond.

And this is why in the stages, there is this emphasis on the quality of attention, at first forceful, and then interrupted, slowly becoming more and more continuous, a wise attention, yoniso manasikāra, one that is able to hold wisely any kind of arising. And there’s a lot there, even in that one term, yoniso manasikāra, yoniso, yoni evokes the female reproductive capacity in some sense.

Not necessarily in an anatomical sense, but in the sense of the quality of holding the matrix, if you like, which maybe is a nice word to use, because it’s related to mother, the mother principle. So this womb-like or matrix attention that recognizes, is able to hold in context the object that recognizes its true nature from the beginning. Not clinging or fixating, even on the meditation object.

In a sense, this is a meditation on emptiness. But because of the risk involved, that cliff edge, if you like, that we walk when we start to contemplate emptiness, while it is still a concept, the risk of clinging to that and falling into nihilism, we go step by step. We have the cultivation of the samayas, of wholesome action.

We have the cultivation of the brahmavihāras, giving rise to this mind whose momentum is love, whose momentum is kindness, whose momentum is rejoicing in virtue, and whose momentum is inclusivity, impartiality.

And if we are beginning from that place, then slowly we are approaching that goal of perfect placement in relation to any phenomenon, but step by step, after placing, continuous placing, replacing, close placing, taming, now pacifying. Already a hint of what is to come, because indeed in this stage, stage six, śamayati, we have this sense of peace approaching.

Sama, same as in śamatha, as in śānti, om, śānti, śānti, peace, jijing [寂靜 jìjìng, “tranquil” — Chinese gloss for stage six, confirmed against the CH translator recording for this same session], of attention functioning here is still the one that is interrupted from time to time by the mind wandering from the object.

So we may still be working with our counting practice to recognize when the mind wanders. The other power that is still active, we met in previous sessions, this clear awareness, samprajanya, introspective awareness or metacognitive awareness. And I’ve also neglected to find a good way to translate this into Chinese samprajanya. We have the like the canonical translation for samprajanya.

My, it’s zhengzhili [正知力 zhèngzhīlì, “power of clear knowing” — Chinese gloss], power of introspective awareness. But the metacognitive aspect, the sense of an awareness of what our landscape of thought and feeling is doing. What factors are present or absent, wholesome, unwholesome, this kind of fine tuning that slowly is working us towards the balance.

So that is recognizing which hindrance is arising, whether we are rising, agitation or sinking, becoming dull and drowsy, and knowing which antidote to apply.

So we’ve met the antidotes already, the hindrances rather, the antidotes to those we have also slowly begun to meet for the agitating tendency, calming, focusing closely on the object, concentrating, the tendency for dullness, arousing energy, thoroughly investigating. Mindfulness is always appropriate because it is actually the balancing factor. We cannot have too much mindfulness.

In the same way, you cannot have too much balance. Balance is just balance. By definition, it does not tip into extremes. So let’s just do it. Let us balance our minds. First of all, balancing the body, finding a stable sitting position.

Let us balance our motivation also, neither to the extreme of practicing only for one’s own benefit, nor to the extreme of imagining that we could be of benefit to another without first having understood our own situation. And let us also balance our intention, recognizing where we are in our practice. What is our priority?

Am I still looking for the breath, finding its home in the body where the object can be clear? Am I working with continuity of attention, perhaps relying on counting?

Am I struggling with aversion, suggesting that mettā-bhāvanā, loving-kindness meditation, may be an appropriate posture in which to put my cows to graze for this session, establishing that posture, motivation and intention, energetic, samprajanya, clearly understanding, satimā, mindful, viharati abhijjhā-domanassaṃ, dwelling without clinging or pushing away to any aspect of our experience, in contentment with regards to all phenomena, even the unpleasant ones, reviewing, acknowledging hindrances that have been present, acknowledging qualities of relationship to experience that have been balanced.

So thank you very much everyone for your presence, your energy, diligence, making use of the last moments we have, if there are any questions, comments, reflections.

If anyone would like to share something in their practice that has felt fruitful or difficult, characteristic, there is good reason to understand that the concept of the self is one that is undone by an understanding of paṭicca samuppāda, of interdependent, co-arising, dependent and interdependent co-arising, and also that dependent co-arising is a teaching on emptiness, emptiness of separate self, something that exists independently from its own side.

So I think the short answer would be yes, that this is kind of where the signpost is pointing us. But as we have been discussing, not simply in relation to the self, this concept of ātman, some kind of enduring soul perhaps, but also in regards to other phenomena, indeed all phenomena, up to and including the mind itself as we learn. But this is a frightening truth.

And for this reason, I found it helpful, the teachers who emphasise that the developmental self from a Western psychological perspective is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make for our progress on the path, our daily life. This is the self that gets up in the morning, puts on trousers before shoes, engages in practice, recognises wholesome and unwholesome aspects of mind.

The ultimate truth does not negate the relative truth, they interdepend. This is why in Zen, in the beginning, mountains are just mountains. In the middle, mountains are no longer mountains. But in the end, mountains are mountains again. We recognise that truth without clinging to it.

It’s when the developmental self becomes the only story we think that we can tell, then it becomes a trap and not a support. Have a lovely day. And thank you to our translators. In Spanish and Chinese, for your patience, even when I skip to the end.