Printed in the Fall 2024 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Grasse, Ray, "At the Still Point of the Turning World" Quest 112:4, pg 33, 44
By Ray Grasse
In the yogic traditions of the East, samadhi is a term used to describe a state of meditation variously defined as “transcendental consciousness,” “one-pointed absorption,” and “effortless concentration,” among other terms.
The yogic tradition states that samadhi isn’t simply one singular level or stage of consciousness, but actually has various stages, ranging from the comparatively mundane (think of a sports player going “into the zone” in the midst of a game, or a musician in a moment of peak improvisation), all the way up to a completely formless and transcendental state, sometimes known by Buddhists as “mind and body dropped.”
To be clear, samadhi is not the same as full-blown “enlightenment,” but is rather a useful stage in its attainment. As the Zen teacher John Daido Loori once said, “Samadhi is the vehicle by which we arrive at enlightenment.”
In my book The Sky Stretched Out Before Me, I wrote about a meditative experience I had at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York back in the mid-1980s, which was likely a state of samadhi, although a very rudimentary one.
It was the last hour of an all-day meditation period, and I had begun to feel stuck in a rut. The sun had just set, the sounds outside had grown quiet, and the sensation of my breath rushing in and out became subtly more pronounced. My mind was restless, and the sensations in my legs had become painful again, worsening by the minute. I decided, almost out of desperation, to pour every last drop of energy into the meditation technique itself, largely to escape from the discomfort. Throughout the day, I’d been counting my breaths silently while staring down on the floor, as I had been instructed to do. But now I began throwing my whole being into the technique, zeroing in like a laser beam on my breath, the counting, and the floor, all at once, in hope of breaking through the pain.
After a few minutes, something surprising happened: I simply became present. I left behind the past as well as expectations about the future, and I was simply there in the moment. No desire or grasping, just pure contentment with what was.
With that, the previously ordinary floor became extraordinary, luminous, and vibrant as an indescribable sense of peace flooded through me. The tremendous discomfort I’d been feeling up to that point immediately vanished as if it had been turned off like a switch—and my entire being exploded into a radiant field of light. The sensation was so palpable that I felt sure anyone looking in my direction would have seen visible waves of light emanating from my body. It was pleasurable beyond words: even the thought of sex paled by comparison. More importantly, there was a peacefulness about it unlike anything I’d experienced before. I had been told about the “peace that goeth before all understanding”—and I was getting a very tiny taste of that now. I sat in that condition for another ten minutes or so, marveling at what was going on, until the bell rang to signal an end to the period, as I walked out of the hall feeling overwhelmed with joy.
This experience was nothing that an advanced meditator would find particularly unusual, but for me it was valuable in providing some useful insights into meditation. With that experience under my belt, I’d modestly venture my own very simple definition: samadhi is a state of being totally focused in the present moment, a deep dive into the Now, unencumbered by memories of the past or expectations of the future.
In that earlier book, I tried to explain that experience and drew on an astronomical metaphor of how a star arises out of a nebula, with matter floating around in deep space, condensing so tightly over time that the energy and light inherent in that matter breaks open—and a star is born, as it were.
Another metaphor has come into my mind since that time, which may help to explain samadhi in a slightly different way—in this case, not so much in terms of energy or light but in terms of time.
Imagine you’re at a carnival or amusement park, and at the center of the park there’s a merry-go-round or carousel, the kind with horses on poles that bob up and down, all of them going around and around. Since this merry-go-round is moving quite fast, you’d have to run quite fast to catch up and hop onto it. Imagine you’re doing just that: running alongside it, faster and faster, exerting yourself in order to catch up—at which point you finally do catch up and hop on board.
At that point, you realize something quite startling and unexpected—namely, that the merry-go-round has actually been standing still the entire time, and it’s really the whole amusement park that’s moving round and around it. So there you are, at the still point of existence, with everyone out on the fairgrounds thinking they’re the ones standing still, and these passengers up here on the merry-go-round are the ones who are moving.
While all such metaphors are imperfect, I’d suggest this one says something useful about the nature of samadhi. When you hone in on the present moment, there’s a sense of profound stillness—not stagnancy or boredom, because it’s actually very vibrant and alive—just stillness. But once you start drifting off into thoughts of the past or expectations of the future, you begin falling off the carousel and drifting back into the world, into the amusement park, with all of its movement and time. You fall out of the Now.
That, I’d suggest, is a simple way to think about samadhi—if indeed you plan on thinking about it rather than attempting to experience it.
In which case you might as well enjoy the amusement park while you’re there. After all, that has a truth of its own too.
Ray Grasse is author of nine books, including An Infinity of Gods, The Waking Dream, and When the Stars Align. He worked for ten years on the editorial staffs of Quest magazine and Quest Books. His website is www.raygrasse.com. This article has been excerpted from his latest book So, What Am I Doing Here, Anyway? (London: Wessex Astrologer, 2024).