The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
5 July 2024
Student: Would Tan Ajahn kindly explain the differences between appanā- samādhi and upacāra-samādhi?
Than Ajahn: appanā-samādhi is the samādhi that the mind remains still, without any thoughts. And it detaches from the body, detaches from the sensual objects that come into contact with through the body. It remains calm, peaceful and has equanimity for a long duration. This is called appanā-samādhi.
If it remains still briefly, it is called khaṇika-samādhi.
Upacāra-samādhi is the same thing as appanā-samādhi. It is only that, for upacāra-samādhi, after the mind reaches appanā-samādhi, the mind doesn’t remain still but it keeps on being active with its ability to contact the spiritual beings in the spiritual world.
When you are in upacāra-samādhi, you have psychic power in which you can contact spiritual beings, read the mind of other people or recollect your past lives.
This is upacāra-samādhi.
The difference between appanā and upacāra is like sleeping soundly and sleeping & dreaming. Appanā-samādhi is like when you’re sleeping, you sleep soundly without any dreams; when you get up, you feel refreshed, contented and strong.
Upacāra-samādhi is like when you’re sleeping, you have dreams; sometimes your dreams can be good or bad dreams, and when you wake up, you don’t feel refreshed, you could feel tired. So this is the difference between appanā-samādhi and upacāra-samādhi.
Appanā-samādhi gives you strength for the mind, gives you equanimity after you come out of samādhi. Upacāra-samādhi gives you restlessness or agitation after you come out of samādhi. You don’t rest well in upacāra-samādhi, you use the mind to do psychic things so when you come out of upacāra-samādhi, you don't have any equanimity or strength to deal with your defilements.
Upacāra-samādhi is the wrong type of samādhi that one should not get into. Stay in appanā-samādhi.
Once your mind reaches appanā-samādhi and when it wants to go into upacāra-samādhi, you should stop it by using mindfulness to pull it back into appanā-samādhi, to keep it still, calm, peaceful and happy.
You shouldn’t go for the psychic power because psychic power cannot strengthen your mind to fight against your defilements after you’ve come out of samādhi.
The goal is to get rid of your defilements. And you can only get rid of your defilements with the help of appanā-samādhi, not with the help of upacāra-samādhi.
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Question: In Buddhism there are four planes of deprivation (apāya) namely plane of immense suffering (niraya), plane of animals, plane of hungry ghosts (peta) and plane of demons and titans (asura). The Plane of animals is visible to the naked eyes, but we don’t know where the remaining three apāya are located. Where are they located?
Than Ajahn: They are located in the spiritual world, the same world with the devas, the brahmas and the humans. Our mind doesn’t live in this physical world with the body. Our mind lives in the spiritual world but the mind can connect itself to the body in order to use the body to do things in this physical world. So the mind of all beings actually lives in the spiritual world.
The difference is that the humans’ mind and animals’ mind can connect to the physical body like the human body and the animal body; but the mind of the human and the mind of animal also live in the spiritual world.
In order to be able to contact the spiritual beings, you have to have psychic power which you acquired through upacāra-samādhi, the samadhi I mentioned earlier on.
If you have upacāra-samādhi, you’ll have the ability to connect the spiritual beings. Like the Buddha, when he wanted to teach the devas, the spiritual beings, he had to use upacāra-samādhi, then he could teach the Dhamma to the spiritual beings. He could see all types of spiritual beings. So if you want to be able to see other spiritual beings, you have to have psychic power gained from upacāra-samādhi.
But like I said earlier on, if you practice for enlightenment, practice for liberation from suffering, you should not get involved with upacāra-samādhi because upacāra-samādhi cannot support wisdom in order to get rid of the defilements. Only appanā-samādhi can support wisdom and support the process of eradicating all defilements from the mind.
So when you still haven't yet to become enlightened, don't go for upacāra-samādhi. Stay in appanā-samādhi. And when you come out of appanā-samādhi then you can use the equanimity which you acquired from appanā-samādhi to assist the wisdom to get rid of your defilements. If you can get rid of the defilements then you can become enlightened.
Once you become enlightened, when you finished your work or have completely got rid of your defilements, then you can use upacāra-samādhi (if you have it) to contact the spiritual beings and teach them the Dhamma, teach them what you have learned from your enlightenment.
Fortunately, not everybody who practices meditation can achieve upacāra-samādhi. Only about five percent can have this ability, the rest will have no such ability.
So those who have no upacāra-samādhi will have no problem to worry about. But for those who have upacāra-samādhi, they should be careful, they should not get involved with it before they can get rid of their defilements. But once you have completely got rid of all of your defilements then you can use your upacāra-samādhi to contact the spiritual beings to teach them the Dhamma.
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Question: Why aren't these three planes (niraya, peta, asura) visible to the naked eye? Or is it because the lay mind is not advanced enough to see these planes?
Than Ajahn: You need to have psychic ability to be able to see the spiritual beings. You are not only able to see those three planes of existence, but also could see other planes of existence such as the devas and the brahmas plane of existence if you have this psychic ability. This psychic ability would give you the ability to see these spiritual beings and to have contact with them.
But psychic ability is not important in the work for enlightenment. You don't need to have this psychic ability. All you need is to have the ability to see that the defilement is the one that is causing you suffering, and have the wisdom to get rid of this defilement.
You have to see the three characteristics of existence that your defilements want you to acquire. You have to see that everything that your defilement wants can cause you dukkha sooner or later. When you see those, then you will stop going after things. And when you stop going after things, you get rid of your defilements that way. But you have to have equanimity in order to be able to stop your desire, stop your defilements.
Wisdom is the one that will tell you why you should stop your defilements; samādhi is the one that will stop your defilements. Wisdom will tell you why you shouldn't go after things. It’s because everything is all aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā.
“Dhamma in English, Jan 29, 2023.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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