dhyāna. (Pali: jhāna; Tibetan: bsam gtan; Chinese: chan/chanding; Japanese: zen/zenjō; Korean: sŏn/sŏnjŏng 禪/禪定). In Sanskrit, “meditative absorption,” specific meditative practices during which the mind temporarily withdraws from external sensory awareness and remains completely absorbed in an ideational object of meditation. The term can refer both to the practice that leads to full absorption and to the state of full absorption itself. Dhyāna involves the power to control the mind and does not, in itself, entail any enduring insight into the nature of reality; however, a certain level of absorption is generally said to be necessary in order to prepare the mind for direct realization of truth, the destruction of the afflictions (KLEŚA), and the attainment of liberation (VIMUKTI).
Dhyāna is classified into two broad types:
- meditative absorption associated with the realm of subtle materiality (RŪPĀVACARADHYĀNA)
- meditative absorption of the immaterial realm (ĀRŪPYĀVACARADHYĀNA).
Each of these two types is subdivided into four stages or degrees of absorption, giving a total of eight stages of dhyāna. The four absorptions of the realm of subtle materiality are characterized by an increasing attenuation of consciousness as one progresses from one stage to the next.
The deepening of concentration leads the meditator temporarily to allay the five hindrances (NĪVARAṆA) and to put in place the five constituents of absorption (DHYĀNĀṄGA).
The five hindrances are:
- sensuous desire (KĀMACCHANDA), which hinders the constituent of one-pointedness of mind (EKĀGRATĀ)
- malice (VYĀPĀDA), hindering physical rapture (PRĪTI)
- sloth and torpor (STYĀNA-MIDDHA), hindering applied thought (VITARKA)
- restlessness and worry (AUDDHATYA-KAUKṚTYA), hindering mental ease (SUKHA)
- skeptical doubt (VICIKITSĀ), hindering sustained thought (VICĀRA).
These hindrances thus specifically obstruct one of the specific factors of absorption and, once they are allayed, the first level of the subtle-materiality dhyānas will be achieved. In the first dhyāna, all five constituents of dhyāna are present; as concentration deepens, these gradually fall away, so that in the second dhyāna, both types of thought vanish and only prīti, sukha, and ekāgratā remain; in the third dhyāna, only sukha and ekāgratā remain; and in the fourth dhyāna, concentration is now so rarified that only ekāgratā is left.
Detailed correlations appear in meditation manuals describing specifically which of the five spiritual faculties (INDRIYA) and seven constituents of enlightenment (BODHYAṄGA) serves as the antidote to which hindrance. Mastery of the fourth absorption of the realm of subtle materiality is required for the cultivation of the supranormal powers (ABHIJÑĀ) and for the cultivation of the four ārūpyāvacaradhyānas, or meditative absorptions of the immaterial realm. The immaterial absorptions themselves represent refinements of the fourth rūpāvacaradhyāna, in which the “object” of meditation is gradually attenuated.
The four immaterial absorptions instead are named after their respective objects:
- the sphere of infinite space (ĀKĀŚĀNANTYĀYATANA)
- the sphere of infinite consciousness (VIJÑĀNĀNANTYĀYATANA)
- the sphere of nothingness (ĀKIÑCANYĀYATANA)
- the sphere of neither perception nor nonperception (NAIVASAṂJÑĀNĀSAṂJYYATANA).
Mastery of the subtle-materiality realm absorptions can also result in rebirth as a divinity (DEVA) in the subtle-materiality realm, and mastery of the immaterial absorptions can lead to rebirth as a divinity in the immaterial realm. Dhyāna occurs in numerous lists of the constituents of the path, appearing, for example, as the fifth of the six perfections (PĀRAMITĀ).
from: “The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism”