Ajahn Chah: Developing Samadhi (audio)

Samaneri Jayasāra - Wisdom of the Masters,  9/11/22 edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Ajahn Chah: Developing samadhi (stillness, superconsciousness, one-pointedness), Theravada Buddhist Thai Forest Tradition

(Samaneri Jayasāra - Wisdom of the Masters) This reading is of a talk given to a group of lay meditation practitioners in England on the topic of samadhi at Hampstead Vihara, London, in the late 1970s. It was designed to be listened to as a guided meditation.

• Theravada Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah

The Pali/Sanskrit word samādhi, usually misleadingly translated as “concentration,” is made up of three parts, a verbal root and two prefixes (sam+ā+dhi). The last part, dhi, is a noun form derived from the verbal root dhā, meaning “to put or place.” The prefix ā gives direction and suggests “placing upon,” and the prefix sam [complete] means “gathering or bringing together.” When combined and used in a Buddhist context, these elements add up to the sense of “unifying the mind and placing its awareness upon a particular object.” Traditional sources also emphasize that the mind focuses on a single (eka) point (agga), and “one-pointedness” (Pali ekaggatā, Sanskrit ekāgratā) is another common way of translating samādhi (Andrew Olendzki).

ABOUT: Ajahn Chah was a Thai Buddhist monk and meditation master. He was an influential teacher of the Buddha Dhamma and a founder of two major monasteries in the Thai Forest Tradition, including Wat Pah Nanachat, the International Forest Monastery for Westerners. He was reputed to be an arahant, a fully enlightened practitioner.

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