Immersion (1st)

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Two capacities, either of which can be present without the other, and four resulting conditions.

The two terms

Ajjhattaṁ cetosamatha — internal serenity of heart. Samatha is calm, stilling, tranquillity; the qualifier ajjhattaṁ, internal, marks it as a condition of the mind rather than of circumstances.

Adhipaññādhammavipassanā — the higher wisdom of discernment of principles. Vipassanā is seeing clearly or seeing apart; the compound specifies what is seen (dhammā, principles or phenomena) and at what level (adhipaññā, higher wisdom).

These are the two great families of Buddhist meditation and the terms have had long second lives — samatha and vipassanā are used as the names of whole methods in modern practice. It is worth knowing that in the canon they are named here as two qualities a person may or may not have, not as two techniques one chooses between.

What the grid claims

The important claim is the one made by the grid’s existence: the two are independent. Serenity does not produce discernment and discernment does not produce serenity, or the two mixed cells would not occur.

That is not obvious and it is not universally held. A practitioner can spend years assuming that deep enough calm will resolve into insight, or that clear enough seeing will settle the mind. The discourse says both people exist and are stuck.

The fourth cell — both present — is the goal, and AN 4.170, already published on this site, gives the four ways it can be reached. This discourse only establishes that the four situations occur.

Why it is stated bare

AN 4.92 gives the grid with no definitions and no advice. AN 4.93 will tell each of the four what to practise. AN 4.94 will tell each of the four whom to ask.

The sequence is the same three-stage pattern the collection used at AN 4.57–4.59: a statement, then an elaboration, then a further elaboration. Here it runs in the opposite direction to that group — from bare to detailed rather than from occasion to rule.

For a reader the practical consequence is that this discourse is a diagnosis and the next two are the treatment. Reading it alone gives a grid with no exit.

Placing oneself

The four cells are unusually easy to apply to oneself, which is why the grid has survived so well.

Serenity without discernment: the mind settles, sittings are pleasant, and nothing is understood. Discernment without serenity: the analysis is sharp, the reading is extensive, and the mind will not stay anywhere. Neither: the common condition, and the one AN 4.93 addresses with the image of one’s head on fire.

It is worth noting that the discourse does not describe the four as personality types or as fixed dispositions. They are conditions, and the next discourse treats all four as changeable.

Where the pair sits in the collection

Serenity and discernment appear together throughout the canon and the collection is consistent that both are required. What varies is the account of how they relate.

AN 4.170, further into the Fours, gives the four ways a person reaches the goal: developing serenity then discernment, discernment then serenity, the two in conjunction, or with the mind seized by agitation about principles. That discourse is the fullest treatment and this group prepares for it.

A reader wanting the collection’s teaching on this subject should take AN 4.92, 4.93, 4.94, and 4.170 as a set. The first three diagnose and prescribe; the last describes what actually happens on the way to completion.

Key terms