"Wisdom develops samādhi.”
Question: Luangta Maha Boowa mentioned that there are two general ways in meditation to achieve stillness. One being ‘samādhi develops wisdom’, and the other is ‘wisdom develops samādhi’. Will Venerable Ajahn share the key points of 'wisdom develops samādhi' – using wisdom as a means to develop concentration?
Than Ajahn: When you sit to meditate and your mind keeps thinking about work or about the problems you have and when you cannot use a mantra or use your breath to calm it down, then, you need to attack the problem that keeps your mind away from being calm.
If you’re worried about your work, then you have to look at your work whether it’s permanent or not. No matter how well you do with your work, one day you’re gonna run out of work. Why should you worry? Don’t worry. One day you are going to lose it anyway. And you cannot tell when you’re going to lose your job today or tomorrow.
If you can accept the truth that your work is impermanent and there is nothing you can do about it to make it permanent, then you just forget about it and accept it. Once you accept that one day, sooner or later, you’re going to lose the job, you have no worry about your job. Your mind can then settle down and you can concentrate on your breath.
Wisdom is only one step leading to the next step. Wisdom doesn’t take you all the way to full samādhi. You still need to concentrate on your breath to get into full samādhi. Wisdom develops samādhi means getting rid of your agitation and restlessness as you are not yet able to concentrate on your breath. So you eliminate agitation and restlessness by using wisdom. Wisdom is to see things as aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā (impermanent, subjected to suffering, and everything doesn’t belong to you). Sooner or later, one day, you’re going to lose them.
If you can see the truth, you will not worry about anything or anybody. Right now, you think that people and things are belonged to you and you want them to stay with you. When they show signs of not staying with you, you become worried and agitated. If you can see the truth and say, ‘They’re gonna leave you one day, sooner or later, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them from leaving you. It’s either they leave you or you leave them.’, then you’ll just stop worrying. Your mind can settle down. You can sit and concentrate on your breath.
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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