### Mindfulness, Samādhi, and the Aim of Liberation “**Mindfulness without samādhi risks becoming a tool for coping within samsāra, rather than transcending it.**” A lot of people come to mindfulness practice as a supplemental activity to improve overall wellness. Common expectations are to find more peace, regulate the nervous system, or sleep better at night. Meditation _can_ help with these things. It can cool anxiety, calm emotional storms, and even help invigorate creative energy. But this was never the real aim of meditation. Meditation was designed for a much deeper transformation. It is a practice designed to eradicate deep roots of reactivity which cause suffering. Meditation, in its original context, is a practice of **liberation**. --- ### Right View and the Aim of Practice Right View is the clear understanding of what binds us to suffering and how that suffering can end. Liberation, from a Buddhist perspective, is not an enhanced version of life or a better-managed mind, *it is freedom from the forces that keep [[dissatisfaction (dukkha)]] repeating.* In my own mind there is often a feeling that there is _not enough_, and that I need to chase after what _will_ be enough. My mind compares itself to others, pushes me into a race against myself, and promises that some future achievement will finally make me happy, while the present moment is always lacking something. This is suffering. Suffering due to wanting things to be different than what they are. When we begin a sitting practice, we want to carry [[Right View]] with us. We want to acknowledge that we are freeing ourselves from the habit of dissatisfaction. Yes, stillness may improve our mood or relax our nerves. But fundamentally, we are beginning to free ourselves by learning to see our agitation's, understand their causing and cease their repetition by following a different path. --- ### Sitting With What’s at Stake When I sit, I often don’t want to be still. I want to hurry on — to get my morning coffee, to start making progress on my work, to move into the day. And yet, sitting upright and watching my breath may be the most _real_ moments I experience all day. Sitting with Right View, I can feel what’s at stake. I can sense the pull of desire and how it stirs dissatisfaction in the mind. I can feel how grasping agitates the body, and how releasing that grasping creates a refreshing feeling of space and ease. When I let go, even briefly, there is a contentment that doesn’t depend on stimulation. Gradually, I begin to prefer spaciousness over pleasure, and raw presence over the rush of distraction. This is where meditation stops being a self-improvement technique and becomes a path toward freedom. --- ### What Is Samādhi? [[Samādhi]] is a **stable and unified mind capable of sustained stillness**. It’s the feeling that your *focus* and your *intention* have clicked into alignment. Rather than forcing attention, the mind becomes collected. The need to exert effort wanes and a bright awareness gathers. Being collected in samādhi creates a more effortless focus. The stillness in the body begins to feel like a force field. Making any movement feels like swimming against a current of natural stillness. Breath becomes deep and free while the aperture of the mind roves across the field of awareness zooming in and out of all different sensations. In this state, thoughts can be seen from a distance. Sensations can be examined clearly. Impermanence can be observed and experienced. Concentration alone is just a skill but with right view it can become samadhi. Samādhi is the result of concentration **aligned with the aim of liberation**. --- ### What This Means When You Sit You can concentrate on the breath all you want. But if concentration is divorced from Right View (from the deeper aim of freedom) then it remains a form of mental training, and the insights that arise will be on the surface. There’s an important distinction here. When I sit simply to feel better or relax, I might lie down, close my eyes, play music, and rest. This can be deeply restorative, and I may return with better energy and clarity (I may even get some much needed sleep). But when I sit to practice mindfulness, my aim is different. I sit upright. I work with both pleasant and unpleasant sensations. I investigate what’s already here rather than rearranging experience to feel good (although samadhi is often very blissful) I’m freeing myself from my default patterns of reactivity that keep causing future dissatisfaction by cultivating a equanimous mind. This kind of sitting asks something of us — to lean into the discomforts, to believe in the power of presence, to understand the root causes of suffering and begin severing their ties.