Samatha and Vipassana

In short, Samatha meditation is focused on calming the mind, whilst Vipassana meditation is focused
on insight or clearing the mind.

What is Samatha Meditation?

Samatha meditation refers to meditation aimed at calmness or tranquility. It is specifically focused

on quieting the mind and can be used to achieve great states of calm and focus. In Buddhist
philosophy it can also be used to develop other abilities such as mind reading and seeing past lives, but
we will leave these topic aside for now.

Counting focusing on the breath, counting up from one to five or ten and then starting again at one. It
is generally advised to not go past ten but start again at one.

The mind is calm and the focus is improved as well in short time practice. Note though that in
Samantha meditation you are focusing on a concept rather than a reality. The breath itself is a concept
we create in our mind, as is the numbering we use to track it under this practice. This is an important
contrast to Vipassana meditation.

What is Vipassana Meditation?

By contrast Vipassana meditation is aimed at insight or clearing the mind. It is specifically focused
on allowing a person to see clearly and gradually rid their mind of impurities or defilements. In lay
terms this is the preferred meditation for letting go as it will allow you to see yourself, others, reality
and your past with more clarity and ultimately come to terms with it.

This practice can take far more varied forms, but in terms of breathing it involves tracking the breath
in terms of one of the five physical senses – tracking the rising and falling of the stomach or the flow
of air as in enters and leaves the nostrils during the in-breath and out-breath. You are following the
breath in the sense of how it is physically manifesting rather than numerically counting it.

However Vipassana meditation is not restricted to just tracking the breath in this way but also includes
tracking any of the five senses – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching – by non judgemental
observation. Thoughts and feelings can also be included in this. In a general sense it involves paying
non judgemental attention to one or more aspects of our moment to moment mental or physical
experience.

This is a much broader definition than the Samatha meditation and covers much more of our
momentary experience. As such after some practice it can deliver much wider benefits than just
calmness. As an added bonus though practicing Vipassana can also produce great states of calm as
well as insight or seeing clearly; it is just that the calmness is more of a byproduct rather than the main
focus of the meditation as it is with Samatha.

A Subtle Difference Between Samantha and Vipassana Meditation

The difference is a little more subtle and deserve a little more explaining.Samatha or tranquility
meditation can only calm the mind because it is focusing the mind on a concept such as the breath and
counting up through them with numbers, which are also a concept. What we call the breath is an
abstraction or shorthand for the abdomen rising or falling or some other physical manifestation of
breathing.
By contrast the Vipassana meditation is actually focusing on the physical reality of these breaths
manifesting, such as the abdomen rising and falling or air going in and out of the nostrils. It is focused
on directly observing moment to moment experience on the level of the senses or thoughts.

Of course the breath in terms of the rising and falling abdomen is only a very small part of this
momentary experience, which can also include hearing sounds and observing other sensations in the
body as well as thoughts and feelings. So the Vipassana definition of meditation encompasses a whole
lot more than the Samatha definition, which just focuses the mind very intently on one particular
concept to produce states of calm.

Should I Practice Samatha or Vipassana?

You choose which meditation based on what you want the outcome or goal of the meditation to be. If
calmness or tranquility alone is your main goal, then choose Samatha; if insight is your goal then
choose Vipassana meditation. By insight we also mean seeing clearly or clearing the mind.

It is safe to say that Vipassana meditation is the practice of choice, as it is specifically designed for
seeing clearly and therefore letting go. Solely using meditation for calmness will not resolve
underlying problems in the mind or unresolved issues from the past.

On a philosophical level, Vipassana meditation allows for this letting go as it is focused on

observing actual reality. As Buddhism teaches us, once you use meditation to observe reality, you
begin to see reality more clearly in the sense of non-permanence. Focusing on the breath or other
phenomena as they are becomes a means by which we begin to understand reality and life in a wider
sense. We see the flow of things more clearly.

We start to see that emotions, thoughts, sensations are never permanent and arise and cease. This leads
us to cling less to negative things like depression as we realise that it is just temporary experience that
will come and go like anything else. We loosen our attachment to things that used to bother us. We
develop an equanimity where we become less affected and ruffled by things that might have stressed
us out before.

This non judgemental observance of reality also leads to to a level of acceptance, where we come to
terms and make peace with what has happened in the past. Through practice observing reality through
meditation we come to accept it as it is and not seek so much to change it, either in the present or in an
“if only” sense of constantly going over the past. We gradually learn to let go.

From drawing out these these differences we can see that for most people Vipassana is the meditation
that is going to get them where they want to go more effectively. The majority of people are not
getting into meditation solely for calmness but are also looking for other benefits, like to clear their
mind of baggage and negativity and for this you will need to focus on reality and not concepts.

As a side product of Vipassana meditation we do also develop an increased calmness; it is just

differentiated from Samantha meditation as calmness is not it’s main focus or goal.