Samatha means calm or concentration. Concentration in Vipassana bhavana is a mental training process in which mindfulness is the most important element. Although mindfulness and concentration are two distinct mental faculties, having function of their own, they do depend on one another and should therefore be cultivated together in a balance manner.
The relationship between concentration and mindfulness is somewhat delicate and sensitive. By definition, concentration refers to the faculty of mind to focus on single object in a sustained and uninterrupted manner. In order to achieve the state of one - pointedness, it is necessary for the attention to remain unremittingly focused on the meditation object for a long period of time. This presupposes the use of force; the meditator constantly applies will power to remain mental focus on the object of meditation.
Contrarity, mindfulness, on the other hand, requires no use of force or will to maintain a mental focus other than the application of bare awareness to the object of experience. Constant practice of mindfulness leads to refine sensibilities and the ability to recognize realities according to their true nature.
When mindfulness developed together with concentration mindfulness performs the function of selecting an object for concentration and subtly helping to maintain the focus on that particular object. It is a state of bare awareness of the object of experience, involving no desire or aversion, no force of will or attachment.
If mindfulness is strong, concentration will likely become more strengthened, and vice versa. When the mind is concentrated, mindfulness is more able to refine the inner sensibilities and to sharpen mental faculties. This finally leads to the development of penetrative insight enabling a perception of all phenomena in their true and undistorted state and purifying the mind of all defilements.
Mondfulness is also capable of talking in and dealing with everything that comes within the field of sensory and mental experience while concentration focuses on one single object that has been chosen for the purpose and rejects all others.
Basically, it is concentration that generates the mental power and the necessary stillness of mind that mindfulness provides direction and guidance to that energy. Concentration and mindfulness balances in proportion will result in greater understanding and insight, which are most vital in spiritual practice.
Right concentration is a wholesome type of one - pointedness, which supports wisdom and strengthens other wholesome virtues. The power of concentration is the factor used to suppress all mental contaminants such as sensual desire, ill will, laziness, sloth, torpor and vacillation, giving the opportunity for wholesome spiritual qualities to arise and grow. If concentration is weakening, or the mind drifts from the meditation object, mindfulness immediate takes note of that and assists concentration to regain its footing.
It is so obvious that, it is the function of concentration to stabilize the mind and hold the mental focus steady onto the object of the meditation. Therefore mindfulness plays a supportive role and in addition continues on from where concentration ends. In this way, concentration and mindfulness the whole process of mental development, which is meditation, one of the threefold of Trisika, according to Buddhism.
Please observe that the mental training in which only samadhi, at any level, is used through the entire process of practice is called as samatha, although one who attained much more than just concentration practice, that is vipassana bhavana in which mindfulness and concentration should be cultivated together in a balance manner.
By THE BUDDHA'S Core Teachings
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