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Sutra 3.2 of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,
translated and with commentary by Vasyl Vernyhora
3.2. In that (tatra) [concentration-dharana], uninterrupted holding/retention (tānatā) of a uniform (eka) mental effort/state (pratyaya) is meditation (dhyāna).
It should be noted here that the interpretation of the Sanskrit word "dhyāna" as "meditation" is a convention of Western Indologists that emerged in the early 19th century. In reality, each of the Sanskrit words "pratyahara", "dharana", "dhyana", "samadhi", and others ("ekāgrata", "samapatti", "samyama", etc.) has its own spectrum of meanings. Attempts to collectively call dharana and other complex psychotechniques and psychopractices of yoga and Buddhism meditation are akin to a geologist calling all minerals simply "rocks".
Just as samyama cannot be performed without first mastering samadhi and its subsequent long-term practice, so too dhyana cannot be practiced without first achieving a state of absence of thoughts. This is because the formulation "steadiness of mind" at the stage of dharana (preceding dhyana) precludes the possibility of flickering thoughts, especially in the context of sutra 1.2. And continuing to maintain such an uninterrupted uniform mental effort, which implies an improvement in the quality of this process, that is, a more qualitative silence of the collected mind, is called dhyana in sutra 3.2.
Absence of thoughts itself, of course, doesn't automatically lead to a state of meditation, but without it, meditation is impossible. Absence of thoughts is easily practiced at any time when there's no need to speak or think, and, of course, whenever you've remembered to practice it. This can be done dozens of times throughout the day, and it's one of the most effective approaches to training the silence of the mind as a preparatory step in meditation (before yogic samadhi, which also requires mental focus). Furthermore, absence of thoughts has its own levels of subtlety, which also influence the level of meditation achieved.
Raja Yoga's dhyana, occupying an intermediate position between the stages of dharana and samadhi, is not yet pure samadhi—a silent, clear mind devoid of any thoughts. During the practice of dhyana, thoughts do occur (slip through), but only as interruptions, intervening between periods of absence of thoughts (which is improved through training), and not as a necessary or fundamental element of this psychotechnique.
It is recommended that you do not focus your attention on such random fleeting thoughts, but simply remain an uninvolved observer, as this is the most effective approach for gradually achieving an increasingly better state of absence of thoughts.
Some yoga teachers, and especially Buddhist ones, recommend "not impeding the flow of thoughts" and not trying to suppress them at the beginning of meditation practice. In reality, this approach is extremely ineffective. It is recommended because of the noticeable weakening and fragmentation of the mind, which is quite common among modern people.
This isn't about medical dementia (the exact opposite of what proper meditation can achieve), but the inability of many people to focus on one task for more than a few minutes at a time creates problems at the beginning of their meditation practice (and not only there). This is especially true for those who subject themselves to constant mental distractions from television, social media, and instant messaging apps.
Such widespread weakening and fragmentation of the mind in principle does not allow one to stop the flow of thoughts even for just a few seconds, and therefore the requirement to stop the flow of thoughts for at least a few minutes (not to mention the required three hours of shamatha) to ensure a state of one-pointedness of mind for such people is completely impossible to achieve, just like trying to force someone who is physically unable to even hang on a horizontal bar for more than ten seconds to do 12 pull-ups.
If a person is capable of at least some control over their mind through willpower, then the most effective and fastest way to cultivate the state of samadhi/shamatha is precisely through regular, willful suppression of the flow of thoughts during meditation practice, whenever the meditator notices them again. Even if the maximum periods of absence of thoughts so far do not exceed just a few seconds.
Some may believe that maintaining a state of absence of thoughts is also a kind of "thought", and that this prevents the desired effect of meditation from being achieved. In reality, maintaining a state of absence of thoughts is not a thought, but a more subtle manifestation of volitional effort, which in modern Mahayana Buddhism are called smriti (mindfulness) and samprajnata (vigilant awareness).
Smriti is the "remembering" of the need to prevent thoughts from arising (and to prevent the drowning of the mind), while samprajnata is the "vigilant awareness" for promptly noticing random thoughts (and the mind's drowning) that arise from time to time, with the goal of quickly stopping them during a session of samadhi/shamatha practice. The volitional effort of samprajnata is activated whenever the volitional effort of smriti fails.
Interestingly, the use of a neuroheadset, which assesses the quality of samadhi/shamatha based on the degree of dominance of the brain's electrical alpha rhythm over the beta rhythm, allows for a simultaneous solution to all the technical challenges of training in samadhi. The neuroheadset continuously detects both mental distractions and mental drift, and also performs the task of monitoring samprajnata, alerting with an audible signal in the app about the occurrence of distractions and/or mental drift, and, accordingly, about the need for the meditator to exert volitional effort to stop them and return to samadhi.
In early Buddhism, the terms "vitarka" (vitakka in Pali) and "vichara" were used to refer to these guardian efforts, but over time, their shifting semantic meanings were distorted to mean "reflection/thinking". Initially, these very subtle "guardian" efforts take place during the training of shamatha, but after achieving the first jhana/dhyana, even they disappear, as maintaining the state of samadhi/shamatha becomes an almost natural process with continued practice.
It is this psychotechnique—maintaining a silent, clear mind for many hours—that produces a natural energetic effect, which eventually allows one to achieve the goal of yoga and Buddhism: superconsciousness. This goal cannot be achieved through any kind of thinking, as it resides on a different plane/dimension (orthogonal) compared to them. It is the psychotechnique of samadhi/shamatha—maintaining a clear mind without thoughts for many hours—that constitutes the essence and primary method of yoga and Buddhism.
The difference between dhyana and subsequent samadhi also lies in the degree of control required to maintain these states. In dhyana, control is still relatively crude, unlike the effortless and natural maintenance of the state of samadhi.
The correspondence of yogic dhyana to aspects of Buddhist practice
Patanjali's dhyana is comparable to the seventh stage of the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path, "right mindfulness". This stage is called samyak-smriti in Sanskrit (or samma-sati in Pali) and is located after the sixth stage, "right effort", which essentially corresponds to raja-yogic dharana, and before the final stage of the path, called samyak-samadhi, "right samadhi", which coincides with raja-yogic samadhi in essence, name, and even stage number (the eighth and final stage in both cases).
It is interesting that also when considering the origin of the word "dhyana", the meaning of sutra 3.2 coincides with the Buddhist understanding of the guardian effort "smriti" ("vitarka" in the time of Buddha).
According to a common theory, the Sanskrit word "dhyāna" is formed from the words "dhi" (धी) and "yāna" (यान). The word "dhi" in Sanskrit means "to contain", "to hold", "receptacle", "to disregard", "to accomplish", "intellect", and "consciousness". The word "yāna" has two literal meanings—"movable container" and "march against the enemy"—as well as a derivative meaning in the Buddhist context, denoting a "method"/"path"/"means" to attaining enlightenment, or a school of teaching, such as the Mahayana (the "great vehicle") or Hinayana (the "lesser vehicle").
Thus, the primary literal meaning of the word "dhyana" (dhyāna) is "holding/restraining a movable container". This means restraining the mind (the "movable container" consisting of a constantly moving train of thoughts "within it") from distractions, that is, a watchful effort of remembering the need to restrain distractions. Typically, the mind is constantly engaged in all sorts of encroachments/"marches of thoughts" in response to the constantly arising external intrusions into its sphere of attention. At the same time, dhyana is the process of restraining these habitual (for non-yogis) mental reactions.
If we consider the correspondence between dhyana and smriti, located in the seventh stages ("dhyana" and "samyak-smriti") of Patanjali's Eightfold Yoga and the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path, then the text of sutra 3.2 can be interpreted as follows:
3.2. Dhyana/remembering (dhyāna) about the inadmissibility of the emergence of distractions of the mind (and its sinking) [accompanies/ensures] the uninterrupted holding/retention (tānatā) of a uniform (eka) mental effort/state (pratyaya) in that (tatra) [one-pointed concentration-dharana].
Here it is worth noting that the meanings of the words "dhyana" and "vitarka" have changed in the more than two thousand years that have passed since the time of Patanjali and the Buddha. This interpretation of sutra 3.2 allows us to compare the practice of yogic samadhi to the practice of Buddhist shamatha/samadhi.
In this regard, a new interpretation of sutra 2.54 can also be given:
2.54. Elimination control/vigilant awareness (pratyāhāra) is that by which (iva) the feelings (indriyāṇām) detach themselves from [accidental] contact (asamprayoge) with their (sva) objects (viṣaya; that is, distractions to any objects, perceptions, and thoughts about them are eliminated), returning/following (anukāraḥ) the essential (sva, "own", that is, the original "empty", that is, returning to the practice of samadhi) nature (rūpa) of the state of mind (cittasya).
The word "pratyahara" is composed of the words "prati" (against/away) and "āhāra" ("into"/diet/eating/"sensory perceptions [in yoga and Ayurveda]"), and it means "control over taking in", that is, control over invading influences.
Thus, sutra 2.54 can very well be interpreted as a description of the watchful effort of samprajnata/vichara – "vigilant awareness" for the timely recognition of various distractions (including thoughts) and/or the sinking of the mind in the case of a failure of the watchful effort of smriti/"remembering", in order to return through the application of willpower to the practice of single-pointed concentration (dharana/ekagrata).
This interpretation of sutras 2.54 and 3.2 indicates a complete overlap between the practice of yogic samadhi (with its aspects of dharana, dhyana, and pratyahara) and the practice of Buddhist shamatha/samadhi (with its aspects of ekagrata—single-pointed attention—and the guardian efforts of smriti/vitarka and samprajnata/vichara, respectively).
Returning to comparison of Patanjali's dhyana (in its current interpretation as a stage of practice) with the stages along the path of practicing the Buddha's teaching, depending on one's perspective, Patanjali's dhyana can correspond both to the initial stages of training for the "achieved" three-hour shamatha and to the four Buddhist rupa-dhyanas/jhanas, that is, the stage of "meditation with an object". Because the ambiguous formulation with the mention of samadhi, which Patanjali gives in the following sutra 3.3, as well as in the context of sutra 3.4, implies not just samadhi meditation, but something more.
To enter the first rupa-dhyana/jhana, the meditator must train and regularly practice maintaining ekagrata (one-pointedness of mind) for many hours, employing the guardian efforts of vitarka/smriti ("remembering" the need to avoid mental distractions, including thoughts and mental drowning) and vichara/samprajnata ("vigilant awareness", which allows one to quickly notice emerging thoughts and/or the mind's drowning in a situation where the first guardian effort fails). These three aspects—ekagrata, vichara, and vitarka—are what the meditator must ensure through their own volitional efforts. The actual entry into the first jhana/dhyana is accompanied by rapture ("piti" in Pali/"priti" in Sanskrit) and joy ("sukha"). These emotional outbursts are side effects of entering the first jhana/dhyana, caused by the accumulation of an unusually large amount of energy, the acquisition of which takes place during the practice of samadhi/shamatha, provided that the meditator observes the above-mentioned three aspects.
Patanjali continues to practice extreme brevity, reducing to a single, short sentence what is described in the multi-volume works of late (after the Buddha) Buddhism. In justification of Patanjali's approach with his extremely condensed descriptions (not without reason they are called sutras, that is, aphorisms), it can be noted that the entire practice of yoga, that is, the practice of samadhi, as already noted above, truly boils down to the regular practice of taming distractions and submerging the mind.
The essence of the practice remains fundamentally unchanged—it's still the same chitta-vritti-nirodha. The changes relate only to an improved degree of mental concentration (along with the almost complete disappearance of the need for the guardian efforts of smriti/vitarka and samprajnata/vichara upon attaining the second jhana/dhyana) and the observed effects (manifested in a reduction in emotional reactions to entering new states of consciousness) upon attaining each new jhana/dhyana.
Rupa dhyanas are merely virtual pearls strung on the continuous thread of samadhi/shamatha practice. They are merely conventional milestones on the path of practice, which must continue uninterrupted, and its essence remains unchanged, differing only in the purity achieved and the introverted-recursive "depth" of the practice.
Comparison of yogic pratyahara, dharana and dhyana with Buddhist samprajnata, ekagrata and smriti
In addition to describing pratyahara, dharana, and dhyana from a yogic perspective, they can also be examined from the perspective of the Buddhist practice of shamatha, with its aspects of samprajnata, ekagrata, and smriti, respectively. This comparison allows for a better understanding of the method of practicing samadhi/shamatha.
Yogic pratyahara can be considered as the equivalent of the Buddhist guardian effort of samprajnata, which, together with dhyana/smriti and dharana/ekagrata, forms the cumulative (aggregate) structure of the method of psychopractice, the goal of which is to achieve a stable, long-term stay in the state of samadhi/shamatha.
From a practical standpoint, the application of this method is as follows. Initially, when the time spent holding the mind without thoughts does not exceed even a couple of seconds, pratyahara/samprajnata will be primarily engaged, through which the mind will repeatedly cease its distraction by thoughts that arise almost uncontrollably. Then, when the time of absence of thoughts has been increased to at least several dozen seconds, dharana/ekagrata will be primarily engaged, designed to keep the mind on the object of meditation without distraction, even if in the case of objectless meditation we are talking about meditating on the nature of the mind, that is, noticing and stopping thoughts at increasingly initial stages of their manifestation and in their increasingly subtle forms. When the time of absence of thoughts is extended to several minutes or longer, the aspect of dhyana/smriti—that is, remembering the inadmissibility of the appearance of thoughts and the need to cease the thought process should it arise again by chance—will begin to come to the forefront of this method of training in maintaining the state of samadhi/shamatha. This is due to the fact that during such long periods of absence of thoughts, pratyahara/samprajnata is engaged quite rarely, while dharana/ekagrata becomes quite stable and almost natural. Moreover, the aspect of mindfulness in the structure of this psychopractice's method also essentially coincides with the essence of what occurs at the separate stage of dhyana (the seventh of eight) in Patanjali's yoga and at the separate stage of smriti (also the seventh of eight) in the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. This separate (seventh) stage is preparatory before achieving full samadhi/full (“achieved”) shamatha, and at this stage random thoughts still occasionally flash by, and maintaining dharana/ekagrata requires the application of certain “guard” efforts—pratyahara/samprajnata and dhyana/smriti.
The full version of the book "The True Practical Essence of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" with a translation of all 196 sutras of the Yoga Sutras with commentaries on all important and/or complex sutras: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G6GT6M8B.
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