When Meditators Misunderstand Samādhi As Concentration

It is widely believed that samādhi means “concentration”. This belief implies that to meditate, you need to concentrate, meaning focus your attention. Such a view has caused a variety of problems.
Tension and Other Discomfort: When you try to concentrate on something persistently, you may find it very difficult. The mind gets distracted. Then, in your effort to concentrate, you try harder to hold the mind to the object. In doing that, you eventually feel tense, especially between the eyebrows. If you continue the effort, you’ll feel tired or even nauseous.
Grasping: If you are able to concentrate, you have cultivated grasping. After all, when you practise concentration, you’re practising the ability to mentally grasp an object. That’s grasping.
Heightened Liking and Disliking: When you are able to concentrate, a tendency is created in the mind: It exaggerates things. Thus whatever the mind focuses on, be it something attractive or repulsive, the mind exaggerates it, thereby increasing the intensity of liking or disliking. This tendency lingers even after the deliberate concentration practice.
Addiction: When you are able to concentrate well, there is very little thinking and the body is very relaxed. In that situation, so little energy is used that even your breathing may stop. If in the first place your object is the breathing, you’re then left without a clear object for the mind to pay attention to. In that situation, the mind creates its own. The object can be visual or tactile, and can seem very real. If you pay attention to the mental creation, you may get absorbed into it, which then triggers a feeling of ecstasy. The experience is so intensely exhilarating that you are most likely to desire more of it. If you can get it again and again, you’ll become addicted.
Frustration and Tension: However, if you’re too eager to get it again, you won’t. If you keep trying, you’ll likely become frustrated or tense, or both.
Escapism: If you become adept at gaining absorption, you may be tempted to use it as a way to cope with your emotional issues. If that happens, your practice becomes a form of escapism.

Parting Words

As explained above, the common misconception of samādhi as concentration can lead to a host of problems. Interestingly, such problems are not mentioned in the early Buddhist texts. We would think that if samādhi can cause such problems, the Buddha would have cautioned about it, and the compilers would have included his caution in the texts. Since no such problems are mentioned, we should at least consider that samādhi may not mean “concentration” after all. If it is not concentration, then what is samādhi? If you are interested to learn the answer to this question, consider reading What You Might Not Know about Jhāna & Samādhi. You will find out what samādhi means in the early Buddhist texts.

  

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