Page 178 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

darkness and unawareness. Thus in negative terms samadhi

proper is described as the complete absence of these three
poisonous fluxes or biases. It is a state in which sense

experiences and material things mean nothing; a state in which
there is no desire for any kind of conditioned existence and no
real interest in anything other than Nirvana or Enlightenment,

and in which there is no shadow of ignorance or spiritual
darkness.

In addition to this negative description there are various
positive descriptions — though here we must tread rather

warily and understand that we are trying to give a hint or two
about something which really goes far beyond any power of

words to express. Some of the texts mention a group of three
samadhis, in the higher sense of the term. Not that there are
really three, in the sense of three mutually exclusive states, but

that the so-called three samadhis are more like different
aspects or dimensions of the one samadhi.

(i) The Imageless Samadhi.
The first of these samadhis is known as the Imageless (animitta).

It indicates the perfect freedom of the state of samadhi from all
thoughts, all conceptualization. If we can just imagine a state in

which we are fully and clearly conscious, fully and clearly aware,
at the highest possible level, without any discursive thought, —
if we imagine the mind as being like a beautiful, bright blue,

clear sky, without even a speck of cloud, — that is what the
experience of the Imageless Samadhi would be like. Usually the

sky of the mind is full of clouds; grey clouds, black clouds,
sometimes even storm clouds; but occasionally clouds tinged
with gold. The state of samadhi is a state free from all clouds of

thought, or all conceptualization.

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