Bhante, based on many of your videos, I think you don't like Samatha meditation at all.
From what I know, there is two clear ways for enlightenment, Samatha first and Vipassana, or Vipassana first and then Samatha.
What do you think about this?
Actually, there are, according to the Buddha, four ways to enlightenment.
Samatha first, then Vipassana, Vipassana first, and then Samatha.
Samatha and Vipassana together
or the settling of the mind in regards to the Dhammas.
So one has uncertainty or sort of a kind of a mental disturbance about the Dhamma and one settles one's mind in regards to the Dhamma.
The Buddha said those are the four ways people can become an arahat.
Anyone who comes to the Buddha
saying that they've become an arahant does it by one of these four paths.
So that's the answer to your question, or that's the answer, that's a correction to your question.
From what you know is wrong, there are actually four, according to the Buddha.
So it's incomplete.
Let's address the comment at the beginning.
You think I don't like Samatha meditation at all.
Well, that may be true.
I may be guilty of that.
But if I am, judging as an outsider, I would say that that's wrong of me.
Because not liking Samatha meditation is a bad thing.
Now, I have to be careful about what I say, but I tend to discourage people from Samatha meditation.
I definitely admit that.
But it's a light discouragement.
And I don't ever say to someone, don't practice it.
I say, I try to focus on the benefits of Vipassana meditation.
There's two reasons, I guess, for that.
The first one is, it's what I know.
So, my focusing on it, and sort of putting it up higher than Samatha meditation, it's because...
By saying that, so if I have person A here, and I want to bring them here, the best way for me to get them there is to start talking about the benefits of insight meditation.
Because if I start talking about the benefits of Samatha meditation,
I'm not going to be able to follow through with that.
If they say, oh great, so can you teach me Samatha meditation?
I'm not bringing them to the goal because I can't.
I don't teach that.
I will end up saying to them, I'm sorry, I don't teach that.
You'll have to go somewhere else.
So quicker for me is to promote Vipassana meditation.
But the other
Reason is, well it's complicated, but I've talked about it before, and the first reason obviously is it seems to take longer and require more to do Samatha first.
So three things.
It seems to take longer, and we'll have a big argument about that, but I think generally there's a case that can be made for it taking longer, requires more,
and has a greater potential for getting the meditator lost so these are the three disadvantages of summit to meditation earlier i talked about the benefits now that's more complete it's stronger it and just more complete and stronger more com so let's talk about those
Okay, more complete and stronger.
More complete means you have the potential to enter into high states of calm and tranquility where you can sit stiff as a board, where you can have great bliss, great equanimity.
And more complete in the sense that you are able to cultivate magical powers.
So you can read people's minds, remember past lives, all sorts of fun stuff.
More powerful...
one's ability to enter into cessation gets more powerful.
Once you've cultivated samatha, as soon as you switch to insight, often very quickly you're able to cultivate insight meditation.
You enter into nibbana, as soon as you switch, it takes very little time.
And it can be very strong, so you can actually enter into cessation, nibbana, for hours or days or so.
So with the power of the Samatha.
Those are the two benefits.
The three disadvantages, it takes longer because you have to first cultivate meditation based on a concept which has nothing to do with reality.
And then you have to afterwards cultivate meditation based on reality.
So you have to switch.
It's two steps.
And they're different because based on a concept you're actually avoiding the situation.
You're suppressing the defilements by not focusing on them, by focusing elsewhere.
So it takes longer.
It requires more.
So in order to do that, you need to seclude yourself.
You need to find a quiet spot.
Sometimes people can't do that.
You need, ideally, to be in the forest, to be away from any kind of noise, any kind of disruption.
Be by yourself.
So it takes more time, requires more.
and the potential for getting lost because you're in the world of concepts.
If you don't ever make the change, you can spend years, lifetimes practicing meditation without ever getting, making the final step.
And this is the case.
We can show that through pointing out individual meditators.
We can show that in the Tipitika.
It's clear that this Samatha meditation isn't enough.
It leads you to the Brahma world, where it led the bodhisattvas to teachers.
So for those reasons,
with those reasons coupled with the fact that I don't have the we don't have that so we generally don't have that much time we don't have that great resources of the forest and so on and I don't have the ability
I suppose I could.
I don't have the training.
Actually, I probably could do fine teaching Samatha and Vipassana, but don't have the technical training to lead people first through Samatha and then through Vipassana.
Therefore we don't do it.
We focus more on insight meditation.
Now Samatha is great.
It's a wonderful thing.
It quiets your mind.
It calms your mind.
I don't think I really dislike it.
In fact, in our tradition, there's a sense of maybe even jealousy.
It's like, oh, I wish I could get more into Samatha meditation.
But we're strict with ourselves.
We say, no, we're going to focus on this because we don't have the time.
We don't have the resources.
We want to streamline it, especially in this day and age where time and resources are of the essence and it's our best attempt at getting the most people across.
You want to get people off the Titanic when it's sinking?
Well, you have to improvise.
You have to find ways to get them off.
So I don't think I don't like Samatha.
I'm pretty sure I don't feel that way.
When I was young I did practice it, sort of not knowing what it was.
But it's very different.
And what I really take issue with is people who don't see the difference.
People who think they're practicing Vipassana but are actually practicing Samatha.
And that's tough because you can't say that to someone.
You can't just say to someone, your practice sucks.
You know, your practice is inferior to my practice.
Everyone's going to say that their practice is better, but you know it.
You're clear in your mind that this is conceptual.
You're not going to reach enlightenment that way.
So there's this muddling of the two.
So this is why we try to make it clear that's not going to reach nibbana and be very clear about that.
And so that's the issue that we always have, is people who try to muddle it.
The other issue, of course, is people who say there's only one way.
You need to practice the jhanas in order to attain enlightenment.
I've talked about that on the buddhism.stackexchange.com, which, again, I think is a better sort of platform for those kind of questions.
But anyway, good question.
Thank you for it.
It's kind of a nice one.
It's not often I get one that calls me out on something like that.
So thank you.