Page 169 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

when we come to Perfect Samadhi there would seem to be much

less for us to say. Indeed, when I started thinking about this topic
I even wondered whether there would be enough material for a

full-length lecture. But let us see. It may well be that, having said
something, one has to take refuge in silence. If this happens, it
should be taken as emphasizing the importance of the stage of

the Path with which we are concerned, and not otherwise. In
worldly life, of course, the more we have to say about something

the more important we consider it to be. At present the
newspapers are full of reports about the American dollar and the
gold standard, and people therefore automatically think that

because these two thin$ are being talked about so much they
must be of very great importance. That is how things are in the

world. But in the spiritual life it is exactly the other way round.
There the less one says about something, or the less one is able
to say, the more truly important it is.

Returning to the word samädhi, which is the same in both

Sanskrit and Pali, we find that it literally means the state of being
firmly fixed or established. This is the primary signification of the
term;. and it can be understood in two rather distinct ways.

Firstly it can be understood as representing the fixation or
'establishment' of the mind on a single object, which is samädhi

in the sense of mental concentration; and secondly, going much
farther, it can be understood as representing the fixation or
'establishment' not just of the mind but of the whole being in a

certain mode of consciousness or awareness, which is samadhi in
the sense of Enlightenment or Buddhahood.

In the Theravada texts, or the texts of the Pali Canon,

170