Calm in the Service of Insight

The relation between calm and insight is one of the classic questions of Buddhist practice, and the traditions weight it differently. The mainstream position treats calm abiding as the indispensable foundation on which insight is built: a concentrated mind sees clearly, an agitated one does not, and so the meditator first develops some measure of stability and then turns that stabilised attention to the examination of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and not-self. Some traditions cultivate the deep absorptions fully before beginning insight work; others hold that a lighter, workable concentration, "access concentration", suffices to begin.

Calm abiding is not unique to Buddhism; concentration on a single object is common to the Indian meditative traditions, and the Buddhist jhanas have close counterparts in the classical yoga of Patanjali. What is distinctively Buddhist is the refusal to treat the absorptions as the goal. However deep the calm, the tradition insists it is a tool, and that only the insight it enables cuts the roots of suffering.