Reading guide
Four meditators, one two-by-two grid
Skilled in immersion but not entering it; skilled in entering it but not in immersion; skilled in neither; skilled in both — a genuine two-by-two logical grid, not a ranked list, with only the fourth cell singled out as best.
Two distinct meditative capacities named for the first time
Samādhi ("immersion") and samāpatti ("entering," or "attainment") are treated here as separable skills — someone can be deeply immersed yet clumsy about how they get there, or skilled at entering states they can't sustain with any real depth.
The cream-of-ghee simile, this saṃyutta's own recurring closer
"From a cow comes milk, from milk comes curds, from curds come butter, from butter comes ghee, and from ghee comes cream of ghee" — a five-stage refinement sequence, each stage finer than the last, illustrating why the meditator skilled in both capacities is called foremost rather than merely adequate.
The first of ten qualities this saṃyutta will pair against immersion
Entering (samāpatti) is the first of ten distinct meditative qualities this saṃyutta names; SN 34.2–10 will each pair a further quality against immersion itself using this identical fourfold structure, before SN 34.11 onward pairs these ten qualities against each other.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, there are these four meditators. What four? One meditator is skilled in immersion but not in entering it. One meditator is not skilled in immersion but is skilled in entering it. One meditator is skilled neither in immersion nor in entering it. One meditator is skilled both in immersion and in entering it. Of these, the meditator skilled in immersion and in entering it is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the four.
§2From a cow comes milk, from milk comes curds, from curds come butter, from butter comes ghee, and from ghee comes cream of ghee. And the cream of ghee is said to be the best of these. In the same way, the meditator skilled in immersion and entering it is the foremost, best, leading, highest, and finest of the four.”
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