Terms like ‘samadhi’, ‘dhyana’, ‘smriti’, ‘ekagrata’, and others all have to do with meditation. Yet, meditation in Buddhism is not based on just sitting. In fact, it isn’t necessary to be able to sit is zazen to have an initial glimpse into the luminous Mind.
Looking at the term samadhi it occurs when mind is fixed for understanding itself. This has nothing to do, in particular, with sitting. It has everything to do with comprehending what the true nature of mind or citta is. Again, looking at dhyana, the description of it given by Szu-hsin (1044–1115) makes no mention of sitting as being a necessary componet of awakening.
“While still alive, be therefore assiduous in practising Dhyana. The practice consists in abandonments. ‘The abandonment of what?’ you may ask. Abandon your four elements (bhuta), abandon your five aggregates (skandha), abandon all the workings of your relative consciousness (karmavijnana), which you have been cherishing since eternity; retire within your inner being and see into the reason of it. As your self-reflections grow deeper and deeper, the moment will surely come upon you when the spiritual flower will suddenly burst into bloom, illuminating the entire universe. The experience is incommunicable, though you yourselves know perfectly well what it is” (Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism [Second Series], 8).
And so it goes with smriti (mindfulness) and the rest of the aforementioned terms. None of them are dependent on sitting. Yet they all have to do with meditation.
But there is one more matter to look at. In itself, meditation, the instrument, is not the same as the goal which lies in the realm of the unconditioned; more precisely, pure, luminous Mind. To be sure, one can be very advanced in meditation and still not reach the unconditioned. For example, in the Pali canon (A.i.282) Anuruddha reflects:
“Strenuous and unshaken is my energy. Mindfulness is set up in me untroubled. My body is calmed, not perturbed. My mind is concentrated, one-pointed. Yet for all that, my mind is not freed from the obsessions (âsrava) without grasping.”
Surely, on the same track, sitting crosslegged in a modern Zen center won’t automatically lead to the unconditioned—but neither will just meditation in the example of Anuruddha. At some point a leap of faith is required. While meditation might serve, indirectly, to facilitate such a leap, i.e., satori, it is not ultimately necessary. It is only necessary that we catch a glimpse of the luminous Mind which is made easier with the help of meditation—but not always.
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