Animitta Samadhi

The signless concentration

Image created by Google Gemini

I’ve got an appointment with the surgical assessment unit tomorrow at the hospital. I think they want to scan my kidneys and check they’re okay. It will be a mission to get there. It involves catching a ferry to the mainland and then a bus or a train, then a 20-minute walk to the hospital. I’m not looking forward to the journey. I feel very tired and unwell. I’m also a bit depressed at the moment, but when I become aware of it, I abandon the hostility at the root of it.

I have been researching something called the signless concentration (animitta samadhi). In the suttas, the Buddha says that practising signless concentration brought him relief from bodily pain. Which is why I became interested in it.

I usually meditate on the breath and body, but with kidney pain, it was hard to breathe, and the pain in the body felt very intense, so I tried other meditation objects, but couldn’t get deep enough into stillness to experience much relief from the pain.

What is signless concentration I hear you ask?

It can be understood as a state of concentration that is developed by directing attention away from all signs and characteristics (nimitta) of phenomena. Signs, in this context, refer to the perceived features and details that we use to identify and conceptualize things. This includes external signs like colours and shapes, as well as internal signs like feelings and thoughts.

Instead of focusing on signs, the meditator directs their attention to the "signless element" (animitta dhātu). Which can be understood as a more fundamental reality beyond conceptualization.

Signless concentration is also considered to be one of the three doors to liberation, along with emptiness (suññata) and desirelessness (appaṇihita).

The meditation involves actively letting go of the mental tendency to grasp onto and identify with things. This requires sustained effort and mindfulness. Through transcending the limitations of conceptual thought and attachment to signs, one can gain deeper insight into the true nature of reality and attain liberation.

I was contemplating how, although it seems there is no meditation object in signless concentration. Animitta (signlessness) is actually a perception, which is a mental object. So one is centring or anchoring mindfulness with that.

The way I practise is I sit or lie still. (N.b. it can be practised in any posture, but when sick, I prefer sitting or lying down).

I sit or lie there in stillness and just let everything be. I experience all of the mind happening without grasping or identifying with it. After a time, it all just becomes a flow of energy without a story.

It did seem to help with the pain and I also became aware of the inner non-physical body. A subjective mind-made body that feels more real than the outer body. I even experienced momentary feelings of pleasure, but I’m not sure if I am practising correctly, there isn’t any detailed instructions in the suttas. It can feel a bit cryptic, so I am experimenting, investigating, and learning how to practise this meditation through trial and error.

It sort of stops and starts. I get into a flow with it and then suddenly I pop out of it and have to centre with signlessness again.

When I hit the sweet spot, reality becomes a flow. Just energy arising, persisting for a time and ceasing. There is only change. It feels like I am just part of an impersonal energetic flow. There isn’t any solid self there. The self is fluid, like liquid with no solid state. As I write this I think of the phrase: ‘one never sees the same stream twice.’

Thoughts become like weird patterns that morph into different shapes muttering continuously to themselves, and I just sit or lie there unagitated by them, not identifying with them, and not getting involved with them, and they eventually go quiet by themselves, and then there is peace.

It’s as if the will decides to just stop engaging with everything. And there is this pleasant feeling that one has stopped generating karma — has got off the wheel of Samsara. And when one does, there is no sign of greed, no sign of hostility, and no selfing. One lets go of everything, and there is just a flow without the story.

I was reflecting that in day to day life, if I just flow like this, I will always be in the right place at the right time. I don’t need to be anywhere or make anything happen. I help the world by awakening myself and being centred. By freeing the mind from greed, hate, and delusion.

That’s how I can help myself and others.