We Call This Thing Concentration...

... but is it really? Yes, we're "concentrating" in a way, but the use of the word is a bit misleading. It used to make me think I had to bear down one thing. Really get that ONE THING in my mind and that there should be nothing else in there. Nothing. Well, guess what? That's just not so. Very often a wider field of attention is better, and when I'm in a jhana it does't feel like concentrating at all, at least not in the usual western meaning of the word. I wonder how many beginning practitioners get confused by how we use this word?

What should we really call it?

Thank you Chris!
What a horrible accident of translation. I've never been able to reconcile my sense that it involves relaxed stability of attention with the word "concentration" with its connotations of focal and strenuous. It seems like a total red herring! What the devil should we call it?
---Jake

"Very often a wider field of attention is better,.."

Hi Chris,

Seems like you made a reasonable call, by calling it attention.

"Yes, we're "concentrating" in a way, but the use of the word is a bit misleading. It used to make me think I had to bear down one thing. Really get that ONE THING in my mind and that there should be nothing else in there." -cmarti

Hi Chris,

This is an important discussion. I always like to keep in mind that "concentration" is a translation of a Pali/Sanskrit word samatha/shamatha. (By the way, "samatha" is pronounced "SUM-uh-tuh" as opposed to "suh-MAH-tuh." The emphasis is on the first syllable, and the "a" in the first syllable is pronounced like a short "u" as in "but." Sorry, I'm a language geek. ) Samatha is a very big word. It doesn't mean "one-pointed concentration." As one senior Burmese monk once explained to me and my fellow "foreign" yogis in Rangoon:

When your mind is tightly focused on the object, this is samatha.
When you are sinking into the object, this is samatha.
When your focus is diffuse and you can only be aware of the edges of your perceptual field, this is samatha.
When you are simultaneously aware of all of the objects in your perceptual field, this is samatha.

Notice that this Buddhist master just described the type of attentional focus characteristic of each of the four material jhanas (jhanas 1-4). This is not a coincidence. In order to progress through the jhanas, you must open up the perceptual field bit by bit. The higher you go, the more you must open up. Maintaining a tight focus will only keep you mired in the first jhana.

As to what to call this kind of dynamic and flexible attention, it's a very good question. How about "dynamic attention?" Just a thought. "Concentration" actually works fine for me, because I try to keep in mind that it's just a translation of that big word, "samatha."

Hello, Kenneth!

I could live with using the word "concentration" but I think that's because I'm now used to thinking of it as what I experience now. That's not going to be true for a lot of folks (and they're the ones that matter), so I think we need to either stick with the Pali or create a commensurate word/phrase in English. "Dynamic attention" is a good candidate as it's much more descriptive of what the thing really is and will thus be less likely to confuse.

"This is an important discussion. I always like to keep in mind that "concentration" is a translation of a Pali/Sanskrit word samatha/shamatha. (By the way, "samatha" is pronounced "SUM-uh-tuh" as opposed to "suh-MAH-tuh." The emphasis is on the first syllable, and the "a" in the first syllable is pronounced like a short "u" as in "but." Sorry, I'm a language geek. ) "

Off topic (sorry, Chris) and equally geeky, but is the "s" not really a "sh"? Or is it the "ss" that is "sh", as in "vee-PAH-sha-na"?

Tom, no apology necessary. My take on these threads, as it is on any message board, is that these conversations are like good jazz. If a jazz piece is narrowly restricted it will be a very bad jazz piece. Same thing here. Ask away!

I'm one of those people who has been confused by the word concentration for nearly a dozen years. I was utterly convinced until very, very recently that I was incapable of meditative concentration, though I now now realize I've been concentrating pretty well all along. Using the Pali is only somewhat helpful because as soon as someone looks for a translation, they're going come up again the "c" word. A term like "dynamic attention" is helpful because one would be less likely to make assumptions about its meaning, as we commonly do with the word "concentration." "Learning to cultivate dynamic attention" feels like accurate description of what I'm practicing these days (the jhanas). But would describing the jhanas as states of dynamic attention (as opposed to concentration states) be either accurate or useful? It seems so to me, but I'm a novice in this regard.
Naomi

How about "Calm Abiding", or just abiding...

www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%...ha)%20Meditation.htm

Amr

"is the "s" not really a "sh"? Or is it the "ss" that is "sh", as in "vee-PAH-sha-na"?" -tomotvos

Hi Tomo,

Both are correct. The "sh" sound comes from Sanskrit. Pali, on the other hand, uses the /s/ sound, just like English. For example, Theravada Buddhists (who use the Pali texts) pronounce the "vipassana" word "wee-PUSS-a-nuh."

When you see the written "samatha/shamata" variation, you are looking at transliterations of Pali and Sanskrit, respectively. I am not a Pali scholar, so all this is actually outside my field of expertise, but I've spent a lot of time around Burmese (and other) Theravada monks, which is how I know what little I do about Pali pronunciation.

Kenneth

Read this. Thought it fit.


In the Pali language of the early Buddhist scriptures, samadhi is the term that has most often been translated into English as 'concentration,' yet samadhi describes something more than the narrow focus implied by 'concentration.' It is a calm unification that occurs when the mind is profoundly undistracted. Samadhi is the beautiful state of an undistracted mind, described in the Pali texts as 'internally steadied, composed, unified, and concentrated.' These four qualities indicate that samadhi is not merely focused on a single object. It is a state of profound serenity that encompasses a balanced, joyful composure, expressing the natural settledness of undistracted awareness.

-Shaila Catherine, pp.3-4

From Focused and Fearless: A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity

Another good candidate: 'Undistracted Awareness'

Look here:

theravadin.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/hear...noise-in-the-jhanas/

theravadin.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/statesofmind.png

"
Look here:

theravadin.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/hear...noise-in-the-jhanas/

theravadin.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/statesofmind.png

"

Great find!

bump!

Great thread. Thanks for the heads up about this chris!

A.) That's an awesome picture from the theravadin blog. it's great to have information presented both verbally and visually -- makes the understanding of the subject matter much more solid.

B.) In line with my praise of that blog post, I have to say I like the term "serenity meditation" because that's what it feels like to me. Each jhana is a different type of serenity, and I can either try and sink deeper into the state I'm at now (and enter a harder jhana state, with less awareness of the Three Characteristics), or open up into a wider, more inclusive type of serenity. When I look at it that way, thinking that I'm trying to become more inclusive of things to be serene about, it makes perfect sense that the fourth jhana is called "the perfection of equanimity."

Plus, considering the fact that the immaterial jhanas are infinite or boundless, moving into higher jhanas logically requires an expansion of the attentional field. Yet some people, upon trying to reach the second jhana which they hear is "more concentrated" than the first one, try to narrow the attention more. Perhaps if they were taught to become more serene by liking their experience so much that they don't have to use any effort to keep the attention on their chosen object, this would make it easier to find the second jhana.

In fact, I'm going to test that out right now and see how well the "become even more serene" instructions work for getting into second jhana.

""is the "s" not really a "sh"? Or is it the "ss" that is "sh", as in "vee-PAH-sha-na"?" -tomotvos

Hi Tomo,

Both are correct. The "sh" sound comes from Sanskrit. Pali, on the other hand, uses the /s/ sound, just like English. For example, Theravada Buddhists (who use the Pali texts) pronounce the "vipassana" word "wee-PUSS-a-nuh."

When you see the written "samatha/shamata" variation, you are looking at transliterations of Pali and Sanskrit, respectively. I am not a Pali scholar, so all this is actually outside my field of expertise, but I've spent a lot of time around Burmese (and other) Theravada monks, which is how I know what little I do about Pali pronunciation.

Kenneth"


And - then again - I've met Thai Theravada monks who pronounce it WEE-puh-sah-nuh.

In other words, emphasized much like the English word "lacerated."

Of course, the meanings of those two words don't really correlate. ; )

Well, unless it's delusion that's being lacerated by the 'clear-seeing' techniques. : )

(p.s. Woot, Kenneth, from a fellow language geek!!)

The noun vipassanā is feminine. The final vowel is therefore long -- vipassanaa if you have no diacritical marks in your font, or vipassanā if you do. Since ss is a double consonant, the stress is on the preceding vowel. Hence, wi-PASS-an-aah.

Thanks for that, Derek. Very helpful. Don't forget, though, that the /a/ in the second syllable is short and pronounced like the English /u/ in "but." So, together with your tip on stress, we get wee-PUSS-an-aah.

(This discussion is only for language geeks with nothing else to do. Everybody knows it's really vee-PAHS-uh-nuh.)

Earlier this week, the talking dog Martha on the PBS show "Martha Speaks" introduced my kids to the concept of concentration. The definition? "Thinking really, really hard about something."
This is how concentration is popularly understood, simply because Western culture doesn't even recognize states of mind in which thinking isn't the alpha and omega of all experience. I'm with Chris--better to use terms like samatha or samadhi and ditch the word concentration altogether.
EDIT: OK, maybe a little harsh. We recognize certain aesthetic and emotional experiences, flow states, etc., in which thinking isn't predominant. But our view of concentration seems to have something to do with a narrowing and intensification of the thought stream, not with any kind of undistracted awareness.

I've been thinking lately of concentration as simply the directing of awareness. It might be sort of a low-brow definition, but it seems to fit. Especially when I start pondering the fact that the conditions for awareness being directed are, well, conditional; concentration states are then by definition, conditioned states.

What we are after here is a freedom that isn't dependent on conditions, which is why the golden handcuffs of the arupa and pure land jhanas can be such a problem for the anagami. I guess my point is, it seems to be a good idea to get 4th path before messing with the absorption sideshow.