The teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
“Samatha and vipassanā”
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Question: Can you explain the difference between samatha and vipassanā?
Phra Ajahn : Samatha is meditation for calm, to stop the mind from thinking, to make the mind still. When the mind becomes still, you become happy.
That’s the first stage of meditation.
Once you have mastered this stage, then you move up to the second stage which we call ‘vipassanā.’
Vipassanā is to protect the calm that you’ve achieved from samatha.
If you don’t have vipassanā, usually after you withdraw from samadhi, your mind starts to think and starts to crave for things. Then, all the peace that you’ve gained from samatha disappear. If you want to preserve this peace of mind that you have acquired from samatha, when you come out from meditation, you have to use vipassanā.
Vipassanā is seeing the truth, seeing things as the way they are, not as what you think they are. Normally, we think in the opposite direction of what things are. We think that everything we want is good. We think that everything is permanent. We think that everything belongs to us when we’ve gotten it. But the truth is the opposite. Everything is bad because everything will not last forever.
Everything doesn’t belong to us all the time. When things disappear, instead of being happy, you’ll become sad.
So, this is what we call ‘vipassanā’ – teaching the mind the truth that the things you desire or crave for are not good for you. They eventually can hurt you. It’s better not to desire for anything. If you see the truth, then you don’t want to have anything.
You’d rather meditate and find happiness by calming the mind. If you can do this with every form of desire or craving, eventually, there will be no craving left in your mind. And there will be nothing to destroy the peace that you have achieved from samatha.
Then, you have a permanent peace which call ‘nibbāna.’
Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Nov 9, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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