The three stages of śamathā meditation

Śamathā (pronounced sciamatàa, shyinè in Tibetan) in Sanskrit means “to remain in stillness”. It is a state of mind in which the ruminative processes that afflict us humans have completely failed, ensuring exceptional serenity and mental clarity. For all Buddhist schools, cultivating śamathā is the fundamental exercise of any eudemonic progress, of true psychophysical well-being.

The practices of śamathā consist in the improvement of samādhi, the tranquility produced by conscious attention on a chosen object. The effect of this attentional effort is to put the reins (attention) of the wild elephant (the unconscious mind) back into the hands of the meditator (the awareness), instead of letting it be constantly distracted, kidnapped in a wild gallop, distressed by a hysterical monkey (the infinity of mental afflictions that come to the surface from our substratum of consciousness, alāya in Sanskrit, something very similar to the subconscious).

The refinement of samādhi is a gradual process that develops in three stages: relaxation, stability and clarity. The three phases can also be understood as three psychophysical states to be cultivated in each session.

Meditation begins with a relaxation phase, in which we free the mind from the velcro of rumination, of subconscious mental processes, offering it as a hold a pre-established object, for example the breath. Often the ruminative current is so strong that it continually drags our attention away. The relaxation phase is superimposed on the phase of stability (or rather stabilization): through a continuous effort of perspective memory we release ourselves from the ruminative velcro and return with attention to the breath (or other chosen object), without trying to block the current of the river of the subconscious, but letting it flow against the background of our awareness. Continuously returning to the breath the power of the velcro of mental afflictions decreases and we are able to lengthen the time in which nothing distracts our awareness. The effect of this growing stability is greater inner stillness and greater mental clarity which we can then also apply in everyday life.

g.f.

The monkey (subconscious full of mental afflictions) distracts the elephant (the unconscious mind) chased by a meditator (awareness), the epilogue has it that the calmed elephant will follow the meditator (realization of the state of śamathā).