How to Practice Samadhi Dharma

How to Practice Samadhi Dharma
May /13/ 2023 – May / 14/ 2023

Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Dharma Rain Meditation Center.

To practice Samadhi, we must first separate the two things, samadhi power and the realms with the samadhi cultivation.

What is samadhi power? The “Great Nirvana Sutra” said: “It never leaves samadhi, nor follow samadhi, which named samadhi power.” That is to say; samadhi power is a kind of ability that enables people to stay at Samadhi, follow one’s heart, not follow the different realms with the samadhi cultivation.

The realms with the samadhi cultivation are the various realm of consciousness that appears during the process of cultivation. Strictly speaking, all the realm of consciousness that appears in Samadhi can be called realms with the Samadhi. Such as no thoughts rise up in mind, such as light, peaceful, warm, cool, itchy, and hemp. The touch joy from the first jhana, the senselessness from the second jhana, etc. are all realms with the Samadhi.

Rather than all kinds of realms with the Samadhi, we would like to practise for Samadhi itself. The key point of cultivation is setting up our heart in one place, and it should not be confused, and your thought does not go somewhere else. On this basis, our cultivation goes profound and subtle, and our samadhi power becomes stronger than before. The realms with the Samadhi has emerged spontaneously in the process of strengthening the samadhi power. It can be shown that we have revised to a certain degree, but it is not what we are really seeking. The Diamond Sutra says: “Everything is just as visional as the dream and the bubble, as momentary as the dew and the lighting.”

The realms with the Samadhi are unreal, unrealistic, and lifeless. If you focus on it tenaciously, it blocks your way to real samadhi power, or even disturbed by evil and misguided.

As for the method of practising samadhi power, it is well known that there are chanting Buddha’s name, chanting mantras and “Investigating a Zen topic”, etc. We hereby introduce some of them.

We introduced a Dharma gate named chanting Buddha’s name in February when we were discussing Pure Land Dharma; it is a pretty important way of pure land cultivation. We know that if we just sit there chant the Buddha’s name in our mouths and we think about all the improper thoughts in our mind, we are not really chanting Buddha’s name, it doesn’t work for Samadhi power. The concept of chanting the Buddha’s name is to remember them, miss them as our friend as our parents, and not just repeat their name. At the beginning of practice, the thought of remembering the Buddha in the heart is often interrupted by idiot thoughts; it doesn’t matter, just return to the Buddha’s name as soon as you find it. With this cultivation, our concentration will gradually increase; the heart tends to be pure and does not like to climb like monkeys. Just as the Flexible Chapter for Bodhisattva Dharma Prince, Great Strength To Chanting Amitabha In The Sutra Of The Foremost Shurangana At The Great Buddha’s Summit said: “I would select none other than gathering in the six organs through continuous pure mindfulness to obtain Samadhi. This is the foremost method.”

“Investigating a Zen topic” is a simple way of Zen cultivation, we introduced it before, it specially works for samadhi power. The essential skill of investigating a Zen topic in one word is “Zen topics – the great doubts – inner investigations “. What is the topic? It is rising a question from your heart, such as “who is reciting the Buddha’s name? “Who am I before my birth?” Those topics are questions, so when we rise a doubt or call it a Zen topic question, never, never think it with the second thought, just feel the moment, keep feeling what the doubt brought to you. The feeling that has no way to answer is a “great doubt.” If you can follow this significant doubt, you will be eager to find the answer. With this doubt and desire, you have to gather the power of consciousness, to see the essence, it is consciousness without idle thoughts. With this consciousness, great doubts will push you to investigate your heart’s inner world to search the answer, which we called “investigating”. So, the most brilliant part of investigating a Zen topic is enjoying nature push power from great doubts. To maintain this suspicion, a word has not yet risen in the heart.

The expression of this sentence’s spoken, and written language has not yet been formed；however; the meaning of this sentence is clear in your heart. Keep it there， keep it clear, look at it, do not lose it. It is training and practice for samadhi power.

Many people like to cultivate Samadhi by chanting mantras or using fingerprint. This is a pretty convenient way of cultivation, and its effectiveness is also obvious. We discussed it before in the secret Dharma part. In an Essay on Buddha’s Heart Sutra, e Buddha explained six kinds of fingerprints with compassion so that we can settle in as soon as possible and correspond with the Buddha. This is a part of secret Dharma cultivation that we can use for our samadhi cultivation. Although we do not understand why exactly it works and so efficient, we have to focus on spiritual practice and corresponds to the Buddha’s heart, as Buddha always emphasized the internal secret, The Buddha’s heart is not a phase, nor is it from the phase. This is the right way to get the wonderful function of secret Dharma.

We can see that Samadhi’s cultivation methods from Zen, from pure land Dharma gate, from secret Dharma. Zen is in the Samadhi, sandhi also in the Zen, the pure land Dharma and secret Dharma are the same. There is no difference in different Dharma gate; we can choose our way of rejoicing.

The cultivation of Zen, pure land Dharma gate and secret Dharma has two realms, the cultivation in a static state and dynamic state.

Let’s take an example here, imagine that you are sitting in front of a Buddha statue and meditate, silence and quiet, this is static cultivation; imagine you are a firefighter who is on the way to the fire, and you are still chanting Buddha’s name in the heart. This is a dynamic cultivation. It is easy to get started when you do static cultivation, and it is also easy to get some realms. By contrast, it is not easy to get a peaceful moment when you at dynamic cultivation. To cultivate Samadhi in the dynamic state is not easy to start with, because our body cannot be static, our eyes have to open to see everything, the heart is easy. It was attracted by the surrounding realm and scattered. However, if the method is proper, the samadhi power from dynamic cultivation would be stronger than static cultivation.

We often say that the strength of samadhi power in different situations is “if you can get 10 points at tactic state than you can get 1 point in the dynamic state, if you can get 10 points at dynamic state than you can get 1 point in your dreaming state, if you can get 10 points at dreams, you can get 1 point when you are approaching your end” Although the saying is not necessarily accurate, it explained a lot. In our daily life, we should not forget our original intention from our heart, cultivate our samadhi power through different issues of life. Do not separate our life from spiritual cultivation, not only moment that sitting down and meditate is cultivation; every moment of my life is cultivation.

The Buddhist used to describe our human mind as a cow, so there is nothing else but the practice of cattle breeding. When the cow ran away, grazing, quickly tightened the rope and pulled the cow back. We are sitting here and listening to the Dharma, somehow, suddenly I am thinking about my parents’ barbecue, at this moment, I know that my heart ran away and I can take it back. This is how we practice samadhi power. When we want to satisfy our appetite, I can be aware of it and pull myself back, and then use the chanting or mantra to settle it down. You can use all kinds of methods from Zen, from Pure Land Dharma, from secret Dharma, settle down, far away from improper thoughts, keep your cultivation continue in this way, your samadhi power will naturally become stronger.

In the end, I want to talk about a problem that is easily encountered in our cultivation, which is supernatural powers. Many people believe that after certain efforts have been made, they will certainly get some supernatural powers, some people even set it as an important goal for spiritual cultivation. In fact, this opinion is wrong.

It is well known that there are six kinds of supernatural powers: Heavenly vision, heavenly hearing, mind-reading, teleportation, knowledge of past lives, destruction of all affliction. Destruction of all affliction is wisdom, and only the Buddha, Arahant, and Bodhisattva can obtain it. The other five are available to Buddhist practitioners and nāstika practitioners. There are two ways to acquire supernatural powers; one is cultivation; the other is inherited from your past life. No matter which way the supernatural powers would come to people that has enough samadhi power.

As we said in the very beginning of today’s Dharma talk, the goal of our cultivation should be set up to the samadhi power, not the realms come with the cultivation, definitely not the supernatural power. “Heavenly vision ground,” “ghost vision ground,” demon ground” is so difficult to pass. Many practitioners have been stuck and have fallen into demons to become the subjects of demons.

Therefore, the Buddha repeatedly warned his disciples that they should not show off their supernatural powers and that they could not use the power to redeem people. Work hard to practise precepts, Samadhi and wisdom, equalize desire, anger and ignorance is the right way of cultivation.

We must stay away from those who pretend he or she knows gods and ghosts, telling fortune for people, fascinated by supernatural power, show off their magical powers.

People that claim they have supernatural powers are charlatans; mostly, they may have some connections with ghosts or monsters, and their essence is evil.

Those who cultivate with real Dharma and get their supernatural power by keeping precepts will never show off their energy.

Well behaved to entry the Sutra Treasury, follow Buddha’s teachings, is the right way of practising Samadhi.