Sīla is Samādhi

an essay

by Bhikkhu Anīgha

What exactly is the connection between sīla and samādhi? Is it that virtue aids or facilitates the development of mental composure¹, in the way that a suitable diet contributes to an athlete’s top physical performance—a secondary factor that allows for better results with greater ease, or that prevents setbacks down the line? This is what the relationship is often imagined to be, especially given how modern notions of *samādhi *go together with arbitrary practices that have no direct connection to the abstinence from unwholesome acts, except perhaps in that one cannot move, speak, or (supposedly) think at all while one is engaging in them. Because of this, the link between sīla and samādhi  is often rather contrived and tenuous, and is not a central theme within the overall picture.

Being accomplished in virtue provides one with a form of composure that one can easily fail to recognize due to one’s expectations of what samādhi is about, and thus even a person who has put in the work into their virtue correctly can end up misapplying their efforts in various directions that do not take that same virtue as foundation, which is what would have not only resulted in greater composure*, *but also in a comparatively straightforward and seamless manner.² Conversely, one not yet sufficiently accomplished in virtue can be tempted to put the cart before the horse, and thereby end up reaping either frustration, or a sort of samādhi that somehow does not seem to be contributing to true knowledge-&-vision, thereby destroying the first five fetters  and making them incapable of experiencing lust for sensual pleasures and ill-will. Because that is what sammāsamādhi would have to result in, especially if the person already has plenty of familiarity with the Dhamma and the Four Noble Truths, and they’ve been practicing right composure for years.³

That other sort of samādhi would instead provide a person with ecstatic experiences that simply take them away from their problems for a while… until they come back, while also encouraging them to keep the virtue chiefly in order to once again experience the meditative ecstasy they can’t have enough of, not because they are truly disenchanted with sensuality, which is actually a prerequisite for the first jhāna.⁴

Now, I should clarify what the expression “aggregate of/accomplishment in virtue” means⁵, since it is obviously not being claimed that mere adherence to a set of rules, be it 5, 10, or 500, is enough to give rise to samādhi. Sīla or virtue should not be taken—at least by one who aspires to mental purification—as the undertaking of the precepts alone, but rather, using the common phrase of the Suttas, as the avoidance of the slightest fault⁶, i.e., any action by body and speech that is motivated by lust, aversion, or distraction. This means that one must start recognizing these unwholesome things in one’s own mind, rather than determining what is suitable and unsuitable through the details of what one did, where, how, at what time, to whom, or for what external reason⁷, or because it simply “feels” nice, wholesome or kind on the surface⁸. This proper virtue also involves not being content with simply adhering to the external form and standards set by a specific tradition or group.

By gradually learning, first and foremost, to recognize one’s state of mind⁹ as it is, and then taking that as the criterion for the character of all of one’s actions, big or small as they may be, one is already working towards the indispensable foundation of all proper samādhi—picking up the “hints” of the mind (cittassa nimitta)¹⁰. The discernment of those “hints” is what enables one to abandon defilements where they *actually are *starting with one’s actions, as opposed to dealing with secondary factors or taking on practices and habits one assumes to be always wholesome in themselves:

This Sutta points out how a person would not realize that using the four satipaṭṭhānas is not automatically skilful in and of itself, just like any given dish is not guaranteed to please the king, no matter how good the cook or other people think it is, or even how much the king took from it yesterday. The four satipaṭṭhānas are skilful only if they are being used for the sake of abandoning the blemishes. And for that, one needs to see “blemish as blemish” clearly first, i.e. see the hints of the defilements in one’s mind, which practically goes hand-in-hand with stream-entry.¹²

And this ability  to “aim” the four satipaṭṭhānas at the right place and thereby achieve all these beneficial results, including samādhi, is nothing other than a more refined instance of the same discernment that needs to accompany one’s virtue: one needs stop judging good and bad behavior by the external properties of an action, e.g. by the tone of one’s speech and the choice of words, or the fact that all Buddhists or those in one’s tradition agree that doing or saying this or that is good, and instead see whether there is internal greed, aversion, or delusion behind those superficially “good” actions in one’s mind here-&-now. In this way, it becomes obvious how samādhi is the same skill, just practiced on a much subtler level.

So, if a person fails to grasp the hints of their mind in the coarse context of bodily and verbal actions to the point where the slightest fault in any environment circumstance, anywhere in the world can be avoided with certainty, independent of what others or a spiritual tradition may regard as a fault, how will they possibly grasp those hints when it comes to the more refined level of thoughts, in order to know the mental blemishes properly and tackle them where they are to be found, instead of misusing the four satipaṭṭhānas to address secondary mental phenomena that they take to be blemishes?¹³

It’s like saying “I can’t reliably land an arrow on the tree trunk, but I can definitely shoot down the mangoes.”

Not even seeing the value of  this higher virtue, it is easy to end up believing that stopping one’s thinking is what the first jhāna is about. It is the same as believing that it’s necessary to lock oneself up in a cell for the rest of one’s life and never see another human to never commit unsuitable acts by body and speech again. Failing to see what the root of the problem is, one takes the easy route, trying to throw everything away, instead of going through the hard work of refining one’s criteria of what really needs to be discarded. This is a task which will initially seem much less “palpable”, and instead feel vague, uncertain, and comparatively unsatisfying, especially because there is no obvious “prize” waiting anywhere in the vicinity, unlike with a meditation technique, which may promise one such things within days.

Having established these points, what the “aggregate of virtue” mentioned above is should be much clearer, as well as how it would seamlessly become mental composure when further refined and fortified. The meaning of the simile of the king defeating his enemies in the first Sutta quoted, DN 2, can be seen in light of this. By seeing the hints of your own mind, recognizing those “enemies” internally where they truly are, you gain complete certainty that nothing that comes from any direction whatsoever (circumstances, people, accidents, mistakes) can force you to commit a fault, a blemish to your virtue. Having defiled motivations in  your mind, overlooking them, and acting out of them is what constitutes a fault.¹⁴ This is how you become your own “enemy”.

The word “aggregate” (khandha) also adds an important nuance. When the Suttas talk about “aggregate of sīla/samādhi/paññā” this denotes a level of acquisition of that quality which no longer requires *active effort *or additions to it, but is now just “sitting there” like a heap or pile, the literal meaning of khandha. In the context of virtue, it means that one no longer needs to stop and interrogate oneself before every action for 10 minutes like in the beginning,¹⁵ but rather every suitable and unsuitable intention within one’s mind is clear beyond doubt just by “looking” at it. One has sufficiently learned how to pick up the hints of the mind’s previously unnoticed motivations. Consequently, rather than needing effort to keep one’s virtue, effort is now required to break it. Using the previous simile, the king would now have to intentionally be careless and allow his enemies an opening to strike back and successfully defeat him. It’s just too obvious when they’re planning to strike back.

And this recognition, as the Sutta goes on to say, is what gives rise to a blameless joy. It’s “blameless” because it’s not based on something that you acquired and will sooner or later be ripped away from you,¹⁶ but on something you would have to, with full deliberation, choose to cast aside. Literally, not even death itself can take that aggregate of virtue away, and much less can the lack of an ideal retreat environment do so.

At this point it should be noted that this aggregate of higher virtue (not just a pile of mere precepts and observances),  paired with the instructions of one who sees the Dhamma (parato ghosa), should already be enough of a basis for a person to develop the Right View. In fact, in the Suttas, the phrase “one who has fulfilled virtue” is often one of the epithets of a sotāpanna.

Notice that it is said that such a person might still break minor rules at times (even the Arahant mentioned later in the Sutta could), but that is not what the fulfilment of virtue is. It’s the fact that they cannot overlook the hints of the unwholesome motivations in their own mind¹⁸, and because of that, they do not transgress by acting out of those motivations, which is what would compromise the essential training.¹⁹

Therefore, given that composure is a refinement of the same principle as virtue, it is unlikely (but not impossible) that a person would be able to see their own mind to the point necessary to attain the *jhānas *taught by the Buddha and not become a sotāpanna first, because they would’ve already reached the necessary development long before that. The most likely cause of not becoming one is that they haven’t heard the Dhamma sufficiently, or at all, but this is hardly possible today if they put in that much work into purifying their mind correctly, given that other spiritual traditions tend not to stress the abandonment of sensuality to the necessary degree.

In light of this—while an unenlightened person should be encouraged to put in the work towards understanding the practice of composure, since understanding it correctly to the necessary degree would already constitute seeing the Fourth Noble Truth and thus stream-entry²⁰—they’d be better off not expecting it to culminate in an actual jhāna anytime soon, but rather regarding those efforts as one possible avenue to approach the Dhamma, and as a good way to learn how to grasp the hints of the mind and thus of wholesome and unwholesome, which is the condition for stream-entry.

Thus, again, the work would then be in attempting to understand what Right Composure is, being careful not to assume they already know what it is, that they understand the Noble Eightfold Path. And certainly, taking any “special meditation experiences” they may’ve had in the past, which somehow don’t seem to have contributed to abandonment of sensuality and ill-will, with a pinch of salt.

If this is kept in mind, it is possible for a person still without the Right View, but who has developed their virtue to as high of a degree as possible, to derive some benefit from often pursuing the following type of reflections as a “meditation” practice in the proper sense.²¹

Virtue (which includes sense restraint, moderation in eating, and general not acting out of unwholesome states²²) needs to have been developed and understood to a point where you can at least notice  some degree of that “blameless joy”, which comes from discerning and correctly restraining the degree of unwholesome intentions that you’ve learned to pick up on so far, without intentionally trying to give rise to that joy with the help of secondary mental drills, because that would be done at the expense of the abandoning of craving.

Having gone to a solitary place, free from the presence of others and from distractions, thoughts in the form of desires, annoyances, boredom/laziness, anxieties and doubts about various issues will inevitably come to the foreground of attention, and here you can—with the memory of your virtue²³ as the central foundation—start trying to see how a different route than the usual two extremes that one is used to (indulgence and denial) could in fact be taken towards those mental states.²⁴

So, recalling (sati) the past efforts to develop virtue, are there some valuable insights that could be carried over and used to not let the mind get blemished on account of these assailing thoughts which clearly came on their own, without wanting to put your hand into what is not yours by trying to get rid of them?

Remember some occasion in the recent past where you were faced with a prospect to break your virtue. What did you do? Did you find a way to stop that annoying fly from doing what it does, or did you simply resolve that you *would not kill it? *Do you smash every bottle of alcohol you come across, or do you simply not drink even if you’re asked to? Did you prevent all sexually appealing people from existing, or did you simply restrain the urge to pursue them? And, most importantly, why is it that you now don’t feel a threat to your virtue whenever these temptations and annoyances inevitably knock at your door, much unlike when your virtue was still weak?²⁵

It will be evident that it’s because now you’re* confident *that you will not open that door, no matter how hard or how long it gets knocked on. And that alone is what gives rise to the factual safety you would be able to recognize, and precisely because it doesn’t depend on circumstances anymore does it feel like safety—it cannot be compromised by anyone but yourself.

So, it is more than reasonable to conclude that an even deeper sense of safety could be achieved while these thoughts are now knocking at the mental door²⁶ when you’re in seclusion, if you found a way to be confident that you will not open it no matter how much of a racket those thoughts make “outside” of it.

To accomplish this, it will be necessary to be clear on what exactly constitutes “opening the door”, and what constitutes “noise outside” because given the subtlety of the distinction, one is guaranteed to confuse the former with the latter and vice versa in the beginning. The “hints” won’t be obvious.

Let’s take arguably the most relevant instance of a “door knocker”, which is a thought of a beautiful object:

But what does the Buddha mean by “the world”? Does he mean “out there in the city”?

So then, it is volitional lust towards that which manifests within the world (the 6 sense bases) that constitutes sensuality. Anything less than this is just a “pretty thing in the world”. But how would one pick up the “hint” of that *volitional lust? *Is it by whether the perception of the object is present at all? Would it be instead by the intensity of emotional pressure, the feeling that accompanies the thought? Would it be by the possibilities/intentions (cetanā) implied in it?²⁷

Luckily, several Suttas give us the answer in different formulations but with the same meaning. Two examples should suffice:

What these passages imply is that no amount of pressure, feeling or suggested actions that a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought brings with it can possibly be what lust is in and of itself, because if that were the case, there would be no escape from lust, no escape from Māra. Lust would have to arise without fail if certain feelings were to arise.²⁹ But luckily, this is not the case, and thus liberation is possible to begin with.

Rather, as the verse from AN 6.63  says, it is one’s volitional lust, one’s *deliberate choice to accept *the presented possibilities to try to “release” the mental pressure that is the problem. Not the pressure, perceptions, feeling or the suggestions to act in and of themselves, no matter how they arise—these are just the “racket outside the door”, the door that one can learn how to keep closed and remain safely behind, at ease. Besides:

Thus, it’d be wrong to think  that abandonment and replacement of sense objects, including thoughts that arose on their own, is abandonment of craving.³⁰

Now, continuing from where we left off, you are in seclusion now, away from people and distractions, plus you keep your virtue and sense restraint  well and see the danger in the slightest fault, so you don’t do anything lustful with your body and speech, and yet evidently the mind is still not free from lust. This is where “mental action” is taking place, the choice to “open the door” for the bandits waiting outside, which is still being overlooked.

The reason why the door is still “open” is because the mind (citta) still values the possibility of experiencing the pleasure that is being offered by the mind (mano)³¹. Thus, you are not certain in your internal renunciation of that offered pleasure, unlike in the domains of body and speech. This means that, even though you have developed restraint and are not specifically planning to pursue the pleasure through actions, the citta still holds, to some vague degree, that it would be “nice” to experience with the body this offer that mano is presenting. And that value of “nice” is where the unwholesome is, not in what is being presented. This is what the Suttas mean by “welcoming, delighting in, entertaining agreeable objects”. The only proper solution to this is to abandon that value, that notion of “nice to get this”, right where it is, without trying to prevent the *offer *and its pressuring feeling from being there—that feeling is *utterly inseparable from that perception, as said above. *Both the feeling and perception clearly have come, and will likely come again in the future, as a “bait” placed by Māra, and their presence is thus not in your ultimate control.

That “value” can be abandoned not by choosing to stop valuing the pleasure directly, but by clarifying and reflecting on the drawbacks of accepting the bait that is being presented to you.³²

One does not need supramundane discernment to realize that *stepping into a trap *is never in one’s best interests, no matter how good the bait in it is. Even if once you’re inside, the hunter is nice enough to give you a few more treats, the fact is that now you’re in his control, so if he ever feels like doing something bad to you, you have no way to stop it. And deep down you know, he will do so ultimately, at the latest when your sense bases, which you have been doubling down in regarding as yours and as dear by valuing their pleasures, begin to break apart.³³

It must be emphasized that the purpose of this contemplation of danger is not to get rid of the arisen thought, but to address one’s inability to remain internally unmoved by its alluring nature. It is because you are emotionally bothered by that “itch” that you relish the prospect of getting it “scratched’. But in and of itself, no amount of itch requires scratching. One’s mind not being free from lust, infected with distorted notions, is what assumes that scratching is “necessary”. Also, notice how in the above Sutta, the man simply *refrains *from doing what would cause the lamp to burn longer than it should on its own. He doesn’t manually try to get the oil out or put out the fire. This is the only way to abandon an unwholesome state without generating another.

If you were to maintain this context of “danger” on the right level long enough, where that “scratch” is being desired instead of where the “itch”³⁵ is, you would at some point realize that the same itch is no longer unpleasant³⁶ because you no longer feel a need to scratch it, not because you got rid of it by force. Rather than being a threat, the “itch”, which is not bothering you at all anymore, will now serve to remind you of your state of safety from the need to scratch, as if you’re now free from debt, illness, imprisonment, slavery or managed to cross a desert. That sense of safety is a wholesome joy (and notice that you haven’t stopped thinking). Because, how can you say “I am safe” unless you’re safe from something? What’s more, how can that safety and the joy arising from it become the central theme of your experience, your abiding as said in the Suttas, unless that which was a threat before is still being equally *recognized? *Forgetting about the threat would mean forgetting about the safety, even in mundane terms. This is why one who succeeds in this practice fully and disengages  from sensuality correctly has “blindfolded” Māra:

It is precisely because* *you don’t prevent Māra from setting up his bait (which is none other than the pressure of the six sense bases) that he is confused and at a loss. Before this point, it had always been a guaranteed catch every time he set up the trap, given that even when you tried to avoid it before, you went overboard and attempted to *get rid *of the trap, by trying to get rid of the mental pressure—stop thinking, concentrate twice as hard hard on your abdomen or tip of your nose, etc.³⁸ Therefore, you always touched the trap either to eat the bait or to throw it away, and that’s all the hunter needed to get you. But now, you are learning to not take the bait, nor try to *remove *it either. This is, contrary to one’s distorted gut-feeling, is the only way to stay safe:

That same reflection and attitude is to be applied to any other hindrance, irrespective of its peculiarities. This is because they all share the same nature of that “itch” or pressure, that “trap” which one will automatically fall for if unclear about where the line is and how to not cross it. Lack of clarity and perspective means already being trapped within a hindrance. Displeasure and annoyance are the second kind of “trap”, which one must learn to “see through” and contemplate  so as to see that the problem is one’s subtle need to act out of it, which is what ill-will is. Same for the other 3 hindrances. All of them are actually different symptoms of the same thing.³⁹

For this reason, if one simply learns to see “mental pressure” or “impulses” in the most general sense, even without classifying it into a particular hindrance, and learns to neither act out of that impulse nor prevent it from being where it is (a subtler way of acting out of it), then the entire domain of unwholesome, the domain of *kamma and thus all suffering and adversity, *can be surmounted one day. And this is the same principle that virtue is based upon—one does not accept the impulse to act out, nor does one prevent it from arising.

This “enduring” of mental pressure (with the right perspective, not just “mindless bearing”) that is required to abandon the five hindrances is the common thread to* jhāna* and Nibbāna, which would have to culminate in the latter eventually when paired with correct views and instructions. This is how Right Composure *factually *inclines the mind towards Nibbāna.⁴⁰ Nibbāna is not about discovering a hidden experiential truth through an esoteric revelation or experience, but about perfect immovability, and thus peace, in the face of anything that can arise in one’s experience. And with this, lust, aversion and delusion, and the fetters of self-view, conceit and ignorance are destroyed, because their raison d’être is gone—the constant, futile attempt to outrrun the pressure of the senses.

It should now be evident that abandoning these subtle mental attitudes and escaping Māra’s traps in the right way would never be possible if a person is still falling for the obvious traps with their body and speech. No amount of effort in meditation would be able to make up for the fact that their actions are still infected with lust, aversion, and distraction.

Māra doesn’t care how well you can perform a mechanical mental exercise and how much pleasure it provides you with. All that matters to him is, you still *could *bite the hook. For as long as that’s the case, he’s got you already. This is why actions by body, speech and mind are what enables the five hindrances, and thus ignorance,  to thrive, and not one’s lack of skill in repetitive techniques, “energy blockages” in one’s body or mind, lack of merit from past lives, or anything else that distracts one away from starting to restrain those actions.

To sum up, the right kind of composure is in having the mental strength to not take Māra’s bait without needing to shun it either, and developing the right kind of unwavering virtue is the first, indispensable step in that same direction.* *

Some more teachings on this proper practice of virtue and how it develops the mind:

• Essay: Intentions Behind One’s
• Essay: The Necessity of Celibacy
• Purpose of the Precepts
• Importance of the Precepts — Looking for a Bigger Picture
• How Virtue Leads to Effortless Samādhi
• Relieving the Pressure of Restraint
• Jhāna is Virtue
• Forsaking the pleasure of “meditation”
• Making the World a Better Place
• Right Speech, Right Samādhi
• Sense Restraint is not Just for Monks
• Nibbāna, Right Speech, Virtuous Behavior
• Sense Restraint
• Responsibility can free you from suffering
• Q&A on Jhāna, Anxiety, Precepts
• Gateway to Nibbāna
• BOOK: The Only Way to Jhāna