The eighth and final factor of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Concentration. This special form of ‘concentration’ - which in its perfection is known as samadhi - is when the mind achieves complete one-pointedness. In this state nothing can distract the individual from the object of contemplation, whatever that may be.
Objects for this type of meditation are various. Breathing meditation is one particular method. Another is by preparing a colored disc - about the size of a dinner plate - and concentrating on this. Another is to use a mantra, a word or phrase repeated over and over again.
Concentration leads to deeper meditative states known as jhanas. These are states of rapture and joy, deeply pleasurable experiences but beyond those of a sensory kind. The Buddha referred to them as: ‘the rapture and pleasure that are apart from sensual pleasures, apart from unwholesome states’.
The word jhana derives from the Sanskrit word dhyana meaning meditation.
According to scriptural accounts, these states are possible when the mind withdraws itself from sense-objects and when the five hindrances - sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and skeptical doubt - are absent.
The Five Hindrances
Sensual desire includes craving for what is pleasant to the five senses. Ill-will refers to feelings of irritation, anger, aggression and malice directed towards others. Sloth and torpor is when one’s practice is sluggish or half-hearted, a failure to arouse the necessary energy to concentrate the mind. Restlessness and worry refer to the inability to calm the mind, to think unduly of the past and/or future rather than staying with the moment.
When the five hindrances are present, it is difficult to see things as they really are. The mind becomes unstable, distracted and unfocused. The Buddha uses the following analogy to explain this. The mind is like a pond. The hindrances are aspects of the pond that prevent us from seeing our reflection clearly. Our sense desires are like pollutants in the pond that make it cloudy. Similarly, ill-will makes the pond cloudy because the mud at the bottom has been churned up. The weeds and grasses that may overwhelm a pond are akin to sloth and torpor The wind on the surface of the lake is like restlessness and worry. Finally, a pond filled with mud is like the mind filled with skeptical doubt.
The Four Jhanas
Once these hindrances subside, the jhanas can be realized. Although there are eight jhanas described in the scriptures, it is more usual to focus on the first four.
In the first jhana conceptual and discursive thinking are present but there is also rapture and joy. This rapture and joy ’saturates and imbues, permeates and pervades this body so that not a single spot of his entire body remains unpervaded by the rapture and joy born of detachment’. The process is likened by the Buddha to soap powder which, when mixed with water, becomes ‘a ball of soapy lather…full of moisture’.
In the second jhana conceptual and discursive thinking are no longer present but the meditator continues to be filled with rapture and joy. This is likened to a lake that has ’spring water welling up from within… so that not a single spot of the lake remains unpervaded by the cool spring water’.
In the third jhana the rapture fades to be replaced by equanimity, mindfulness and clarity of awareness. This is likened to lotuses ‘born in water, grown in water, nurtured in submersion…from the tip to the roots saturated and imbued, permeated and pervaded by the cool water’.
In the fourth jhana the meditator experiences a state beyond pleasure and pain, and the mind becomes totally pure and lucid. It is likened to a man who wraps himself from head to toe in a white cloth so that he is completely covered.
In each case the Buddha promises that he who lives ‘earnest, ardent and resolute’ will lose desire for worldly matters and will develop a mind that is ‘firm’, ‘calm’, ‘harmonious’ and ‘concentrated’.