..续本文上一页separately, the practice of concentration on one of the prescribed objects of serenity meditation inhibits them all simultaneously. Though only affective so long as no particular hindrance impedes the meditative progress, this method, drawing upon the power of mental unification, is capable of bringing tremendous force to bear upon the struggle against their supremacy. Since the latent defilements can crop up into the open only so long as the mind is driven by discursive thinking, the unification of the mind upon a single object closes off the portal through which they emerge. As the mind descends to increasingly deeper levels of concentration, the hindrances are gradually made to subside until, with the attainment of access, their suppression becomes complete. Held at bay in the base of the mental continuum, the latent defilements are no longer capable of rising to the surface of consciousness. For as long as the suppressive force of concentration prevails, their activity is suspended, and the mind remains secure in its one-pointed stabilization, safe from their disruptive influence. This abandonment of the hindrances through the power of suppression brings a feeling of profound relief accompanied by a blissful effusion born from the newly accomplished purification. The Buddha compares the happiness of abandoning the hindrances to the happiness a man would experience if he were unexpectedly freed from debt, cured of a serious illness, released from prison, set free from slavery, or led to safety at the end of a desert journey. [20]

　　Concentration (Samádhi)

　　"Happiness is the supporting condition for concentration": The attainment of access signals a major breakthrough, which spurs on further exertion. As a result of such exertion the bliss generated in the access stage is made to expand and to suffuse the mind so completely that the subtlest barriers to inner unification disappear. Along with their disappearance the mind passes beyond the stage of access and enters into absorption or full concentration (samádhi). Concentration itself denotes a mental factor present in both the attainments of access and absorption. Its salient feature is the wholesome unification of the mind on a single object, and it brings about a harmonization between consciousness and its concomitants to a degree sufficient to free them from the distraction, vacillation, and unsteadiness characterizing their normal operations. The mind in concentration, fixed firmly on its object, is like the flame of a candle shielded from the wind or the surface of a lake on which all the waves and ripples have been stilled.

　　However, although both access and absorption partake of the nature of concentration, an important difference still separates them, justifying the restriction of the term "full concentration" to absorption alone. This difference consists in the relative strength in the two attainments of certain mental concomitants called the "factors of absorption" or "jhana factors" (jhanangani) -- namely, applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, happiness, and mental one-pointed-ness. These factors, aroused at the very beginning of serenity meditation and gradually cultivated through the course of its progress, have the dual function of inhibiting the hindrances and unifying the mind on its object. According to the commentaries, the factors are aligned with the hindrances in a direct one-to-one relation of opposition, such that each jhana factor has the specific task of countering and occluding one hindrance. Thus applied thought counteracts stiffness and torpor, sustained thought doubt, rapture ill will, happiness restlessness and regret, and one-pointed-ness sensual desire. [21] At the same time the factors exercise a consolidating function with respect to th…

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