Page 181 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

Sometimes they have even distorted it. The reason for this is

that they take the word samadhi to mean concentration and
think that Hui Neng is equating this with Wisdom, making

nonsense of his teaching and leading people far astray indeed.
The samadhi of Hui Neng, however, in this passage at least, is
samadhi in the highest sense: samadhi as identical with the

eighth step of the Noble Eightfold Path, as we have explained it.
In other words, samadhi in this passage means the state of being

fully established in the Enlightened mode of being. This is, in
fact, quite clear from the Platform Scripture. Hui Neng says quite
clearly and emphatically in the sutra that people misinterpret

the 'samadhi of one characteristic', thinking that it means sitting
quietly and continuously without letting any ideas arise in the

mind. In other words, they think it means concentration — an
interpretation Hui Neng rejects. If it were just concentration, it
would make us like inanimate objects. Samadhi in the real sense,

he says — samadhi in his sense, in the Ch'an or Zen sense — is
something quite different.

This does not mean that Hui Neng is against sitting in meditation
or against concentrating the mind. He is only saying that

concentration, or Samatha, is not samadhi in the fullest and
highest sense, or in the real sense. Concentration is just

concentration: it is not that samadhi which, according to his
teaching, is identical with Prajna. True samadhl, Hui Neng says,
remains the same under all circumstances and conditions. It is

not something you experience only when you sit and meditate.

In Zen monasteries and temples the three stages of Samatha,
samapatti and samädhi — in the highest sense

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