The Pali phrase upacāra-samādhi, which we translate as “access concentration,” does not appear in the suttas.a But it certainly is a useful concept when discussing jhāna practice. The phrase access concentration means concentration strong enough to provide access to the jhānas. It is distinguished from momentary concentration (khaṇika-samādhi), which is less concentrated than access concentration, and from fixed or one-pointed concentration (appanā-samādhi), which is the stronger concentration associated with the jhānas. We could define access concentration as concentration strong enough that
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