The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
11th November, 2022
“If you practise or meditate a lot, your concentration will be quite deep and can happen in any posture.”
The term—bhavanga (ground of becoming)—can refer to two things, or two types of an inactive state of mind. One refers to sleeping whereas the other is a mental state of concentration (samādhi).
If it is the sleeping kind of bhavanga, you won’t be conscious. You won’t be aware that you’re sleeping. It is like dozing off while driving, that is the sleeping kind of bhavanga.
But if it’s the concentration kind, it will feel as if your mind has fallen into a hole and just remains still.
You’ll still be constantly mindful—being aware of the lightness and ease of your mind. There will be no thoughts or very few.
So the concentration kind of bhavanga is a state of mental calm. Sometimes it is referred to as bhavanga and sometimes as tranquility or one-pointedness. For example, if you keep reciting ‘Buddho’, you’ll reach a point where your mind becomes focussed. It is as if you’ve fallen into a hole or off a cliff, or when a plane suddenly drops due to a change in air pressure. Your mind will fade for a short while and then remain still. You’ll still be fully conscious, just like you’re sitting here and chatting. If you carry on chatting, your mind can also suddenly fade for a short while. It can also happen during a walking meditation.
If your mind is not active and thinking about things, it will drop into absorption and into calmness. Your mind is simply in full concentration. However, there are many levels of samādhi depending on the varying depth. If you practise or meditate a lot, your concentration will be quite deep and can happen in any posture.
In the beginning, you might need to rely on sitting meditation in order to get into absorption, because you still require the stillness of your physical body in order to calm your mind. But once your mind has established a certain level of calmness, your mind may fall into absorption during walking meditation.
Luangpu Chob, for example, used to do his ascetic walking/wandering during the night. He would hold a lantern in one hand and keep walking while reciting ‘Buddho’. And one time, he happened to run into a tiger. Once he saw the tiger, his mind suddenly dropped into absorption.
The tiger vanished from his mind or perception. Once his mind withdrew from the absorption, the lantern had already gone out, but he was still holding it in his hand. This shows that his mind was fully concentrated for a certain period of time.
It is as if his body turned into a rock—standing still and his mind was void of his body. His mind was fully absorbed in whichever posture his body was in. His mind must have wavered when he saw the tiger, but he was able to maintain his mindfulness and so didn’t panic. Without mindfulness, he would have panicked and reacted to seeing the tiger. But he didn’t, because he managed to maintain his mindfulness and so his mind dropped into absorption and became fully concentrated.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
Youtube: Dhamma in English
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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