Samadhi and Absorptions (English Monk)

• The right honorable Venerable has perhaps misunderstood the meaning of "momentary" concentration, which is not so-called because it comes and goes (vacillates) but for its continuity on a moving object: Khanika samadhi - Meditation - Classical Theravāda. See also Bhikkhu Bodhi, "Meditation"
• What is samādhi? Three kinds of mindfulness | Pure Dhamma
• What are khanika, upacara, and appana samadhi? (Q&A)

Samādhi: "concentration," literally "the (mental) state of being firmly fixed" (sam+ā+√ hā). It is fixing the mind (attention) on a single object.

"One-pointedness of mind (cittass' ekaggatā), Ven. Visakha, this is called concentration" (MN 44).

Concentration -- though often very weak -- is one of the seven mental concomitants (cetasikas) inseparably associated with all consciousness. Compare with nāma, cetanā.

"Right concentration" (sammā-samādhi), as the last link of the Ennobling Eightfold Path (magga), is defined as the four meditative absorptions (jhānas).

In a wider sense, comprising also much weaker states of concentration, it is associated with all karmically wholesome (kusala) consciousness(es). "Wrong concentration" (micchā-samādhi) is concentration associated with all karmically unwholesome (akusala) consciousness(es).

Wherever in the texts this term is not distinguished by "right" or "wrong," there "right concentration" is meant.

In concentration one may distinguish three grades of intensity:

• (1) "Preparatory concentration" (parikamma-samādhi) existing at the beginning of the mental exercise.
• (2) "Neighborhood concentration" (upacāra-samādhi), that is, concentration "approaching" but not yet attaining the first absorption (jhāna), which in certain mental exercises is marked by the appearance of the so-called "counter-image" (patibhāga-nimitta).
• (3) "Attainment concentration" (appanā-samādhi), that is, concentration present during the absorptions.

(Appendix) For further details, see bhāvana, Path of Purification (Vis.M. III and Fund. IV.)

Concentration connected with the four noble path-moments (magga), and fruition-moments (phala) [which results in awakening/enlightenment], is called supermundane (lokuttara), having Nirvana (Nibbāna) as object.

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Any other concentration, even that of the sublimest absorptions (jhanas) is merely mundane (lokiya). 

According to DN 33, the cultivation of stillness (development of concentration, samādhi-bhāvanā) may bring about a fourfold blessing:

1. present happiness through the four (material) absorptions;
2. (2) knowledge and vision (knowing and seeing, ñāna-dassana), here probably identical with the "divine eye" (see abhiññā) through perception of light (kasina);
3. mindfulness and clear comprehension (sati-sampajana) through the clear knowledge of the arising, persisting and vanishing of feelings, perceptions and thoughts;
4. extinction of all cankers (āsava-kkhaya) through understanding the arising and passing away of the Five Aggregates clung to as self (khandha).

Concentration is one of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment (bojjhanga), one of the Five Spiritual Faculties and Five Powers (bala), and the last link of the Noble (Ennobling/Enlightening) Eightfold Path.

In the threefold division (virtue, concentration, and wisdom) of the Noble Eightfold Path, concentration is a collective name for the three last factors of the path (sikkhā).

• Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, samādhi, English Buddhist Monk (video); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly