All five factors of śamatha are present in Stage Ten. Each time you sit, you quickly enter a state where attention is stable, mindfulness is powerful, and the unified mind rests in a state of joy accompanied by tranquility and equanimity. However, these quickly fade when you rise from the cushion. Your goal for this Stage is to reach a point where śamatha persists between sittings, permeating your everyday life. This is the one real change left in the perfection of śamatha. Then, śamatha becomes the “normal” condition for the adept meditator. The distinction between meditation and
...more
