4. Samadhi 3

　　 Samadhi is by name and nature “calmness”. It is of three kinds as follows:

　　 1. Khanika Samadhi – in which the heart becomes unwaveringly fixed and calm for a short time after which it withdraws.

　　 2. Upacara Samadhi – of which the Lord Buddha said, that it is almost the same, but it lasts longer than khanika samadhi. Then the citta withdraws from this state.

　　 3. Appana Samadhi – is samadhi that is subtle, firm, and unwavering, and in which one can remain concentrated for a long time. One may also remain concentrated in this state, or withdraw from it as one wishes.

　　 Here, Upacara Samadhi will be briefly discussed from the viewpoint of the “FOREST DHAMMA”.8

　　 In Upacara Samadhi, when the citta has dropped into a calm state it does not remain in that state, but partially withdraws from it to follow and get to know about various things which have come into contact with the heart.

　　 Sometimes something arises concerning oneself and one sees a vision (nimitta) which is sometimes good and sometimes bad, but in the first stage the nimitta will generally be something about oneself. If one is not careful this can lead to trouble, because nimittas which arise from this kind of samadhi are of innumerable varieties.

　　 Sometimes in front of one there appears an image of oneself lying down dead, the body decayed and swollen, or it may be the dead body of someone else. Sometimes it is a skeleton, or bones scattered about, or maybe one sees it as a corpse being carried past.

　　 When such a nimitta appears, a clever person will take it as his Uggaha Nimitta; in order that it may become the Patibhaga Nimitta9, because this will steadily lead to samadhi becoming firm and to wisdom becoming penetrating and strong.

　　 For a person, who has a strong ability in maintaining a detached rational attitude, to be successful in gaining value from such a nimitta he will always tend to develop mindfulness and wisdom (sati-panna) when faced with it. But there are a lot of people whose natures are timid and easily frightened, and Upacara Samadhi may do harm to the citta of a person of this type because this class of samadhi is of many different kinds and many frightening experiences can occur. For example, the image of a man may appear, whose bodily shape, colour and social position10 are all frightening, and he may appear as though about to slash at one with a sword, or to eat one.

　　 If however, one has little fear and is not timid, one can suffer no harm in such circumstances and one will learn more and more methods of curing one”s citta from these kinds of nimittas, or samadhi. But with a timid person – who usually tends to look for fearful things – the more he sees a frightening nimitta the larger it becomes, and at such a time he may unfortunately be driven mad.

　　 As for external nimittas which come and go, one may or may not know whether a nimitta is external or whether it arises from oneself. But when one has become skilled with internal nimittas which arise from oneself, one will be able to know which are external nimittas. External nimittas are associated with many different happenings of people, animals, pretas, bhutas (ghosts of the dead), the son of a deva, a devata, Indra, or Brahma, any of which may at that time be associated with one”s samadhi, even as one talks to a guest who comes on a visit. When such incidents occur they may last for a long or short time depending on how long the necessary conditions last that are required for such happenings.

　　 Sometimes however, the first set of conditions dies away and another set of conditions arises continuing from the first set, which is not easily brought to a close for the theme may be of short or long du…

《Wisdom Develops Samadhi - Samadhi 3》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…