samata and vipassana
As it has been a while since I was meditating regularly I have been experiencing some doubts about going back to it. Not a patch on my old regime of course but still requires a certain amount of commitment. The main doubt is all to do with why I stopped in the first place.
So why did I stop almost eight years ago? For two main reasons really. One was to disentangle myself from the Buddhist movement. My own practice seemed at the time to be part and parcel of that movement and stopping that meant a further step away. And the second reason was an experience that I had during a meditation retreat which caused me to wonder how far I was prepared to go. My current doubts about restarting a regular meditation practice spring from the latter reason.
Definitions in Traditional Buddhism
In traditional Buddhist texts meditation is divided into two great halves namely tranquility (samata) and insight (vipassana). Typically samata practices are done first in order to calm the mind and enter states of consciousness that are called the dhyanas. Once the practitioner is capable of entering these states of mind and maintaining them then they use them to reflect upon basic truths about reality such as impermanence. The calm states of mind brought about by the earlier practices allow the full impact of the truth to permeate ones whole being so that it may be understood more than just intellectually.
My current plan
It occurred to me during a very short sit after a yoga session recently that I could work purely on samata. My current plan is to practice maybe 3 times a week at 20 minutes a session. Not much compared to my previous regime of 2 hours a day, but I’m not planning to pick up where I left off. I just want to develop that calm again and get my samata techniques out of the attic as it were and dust off the cobwebs. There won’t be any vipassana action for a while yet, unless I decide to go on retreat or something. So I don’t need to commit myself in any way.
So in a sense I’m deciding to not decide. And making a decision is the best antidote to doubt. I need to do my practice again as more clients are asking for meditation lessons. I need to be able to draw directly from an inner experience rather than just memories. I need a live practice. But wasn’t that an insight in itself?
Maybe. One of my teachers said that insight with a big “I” is nothing more than an accumulation of many small insights and realisations. Then the balance eventually tips. So I suppose one has to ask the question, can one have samata without vipassana and vice versa? But that’s another topic.