Samatha and vipassanā: calm and insight

The Pali texts name two qualities of mind that work together in meditation: samatha, calm or tranquillity, and vipassanā, insight. Living traditions agree that both matter. They disagree about how much calm is needed before insight, what kind, and when. This page sets out what the early texts say, what the later commentaries added, and how several traditions answer, without ranking them.

Two qualities in the early texts

A short discourse in the Numbered Discourses, AN 2.31, says two things "play a part in realization: serenity and discernment". When serenity is developed, the mind is developed and greed is given up. When discernment is developed, wisdom is developed and ignorance is given up. Bhikkhu Sujato translates samatha as "serenity" and vipassanā as "discernment"; the Pali Text Society's dictionary gives "calm, quietude of heart" for samatha.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out that the discourses use the word vipassanā only rarely, in sharp contrast to their frequent use of jhāna. When they do mention vipassanā, he writes, they almost always pair it with samatha, as two qualities of mind a person may have rather than two alternative methods.

The glossary of S. N. Goenka's Discourse Summaries divides meditation, bhāvanā, along the same line. The development of calm corresponds to concentration and leads to the jhānas; the development of insight corresponds to wisdom, paññā, and leads to liberation.

What jhāna is

Jhāna is usually translated as absorption: a state of strong concentration, or samādhi. The Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta (DN 22) defines right concentration, the last factor of the Eightfold Path, as four jhānas:

• First jhāna: secluded from sensual pleasures and unskilful qualities, with rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while the mind is placed on its object and kept connected to it.
• Second jhāna: that placing and connecting are stilled; rapture and bliss are now born of concentration, with inner clarity and the mind at one.
• Third jhāna: rapture fades; the meditator is equanimous, mindful and aware, and feels bliss.
• Fourth jhāna: pleasure and pain are given up, leaving neither, with pure equanimity and mindfulness.

The Pali words for rapture, bliss and equanimity are pīti, sukha and upekkhā. The same Goenka glossary counts eight such states in all, and it names three levels of concentration: momentary concentration (khaṇika samādhi), sustained from moment to moment; "neighbourhood" or access concentration (upacāra samādhi), which approaches absorption; and full absorption (appanā samādhi), which is jhāna.

Four ways to awakening in AN 4.170

An early statement on the order of the two is a short discourse spoken by Venerable Ānanda at Kosambī. He says that every monk or nun who declared full awakening in his presence did so by one of four paths:

1. developing serenity first, then discernment (samathapubbaṅgamaṃ vipassanaṃ);
2. developing discernment first, then serenity;
3. developing serenity and discernment in conjunction (yuganaddha), which gives the sutta its name;
4. a mind seized by restlessness about the teaching, which in time settles, becomes unified and is immersed in samādhi.

In each case, Ānanda says, the path is born in them, and by cultivating it they give up the fetters. Read plainly, the discourse allows more than one order.

Two vehicles in the commentaries

The later commentaries describe two kinds of meditator. Nyanaponika Thera sets out the distinction in his introduction to Mahasi Sayadaw's The Progress of Insight. One who first develops tranquillity, reaches access or full concentration, and then contemplates the five groups of grasping is called samatha-yānika, one "who has tranquillity as his vehicle". One who "from the very start applies insight to the five groups of grasping" is called suddha-vipassanā-yānika, one with pure insight as vehicle.

Nyanaponika describes Mahasi's method as sukkha-vipassanā, "bare insight", because it dispenses with the prior development of full absorption. He adds that even so, "a high degree of mental concentration is required".

How living traditions answer

Tradition	Calm before insight
Pa-Auk	Samatha first, to jhāna. The yogi may choose any of forty samatha subjects; most use mindfulness of breathing. Alternatively, a yogi may omit jhāna and develop the less powerful access concentration through four-elements meditation, then begin vipassanā.
S. N. Goenka	About three and a half days of ānāpāna (Days 1 to 3 and the morning of Day 4 of a 10-day course), then Vipassana. The course has no jhāna stage.
Mahasi Sayadaw	No separate calm stage. Continuous mental noting supports momentary concentration and aims at insight without first attaining jhāna.
Sayadaw U Tejaniya	The emphasis is on awareness and attitude. One excerpt of his teaching is titled "Why Sayadaw Doesn't Teach Concentration Meditation"; another, "Samatha Has Its Place in the Practice when Done Correctly".

Pa-Auk's own description puts samatha and vipassanā in sequence. Whichever route the yogi takes, it says, the concentration attained produces the "light of wisdom". Having developed samatha, the yogi goes on to practise vipassanā, discerning impermanence, suffering and non-self, and progresses through the insight knowledges towards nibbāna. See also Pa-Auk Sayadaw, Mahasi Sayadaw and S. N. Goenka.

The debate, with both sides

The case for developing jhāna

Thanissaro Bhikkhu argues that samatha and vipassanā "are not separate paths of practice" but complementary ways of relating to the present moment, and that both are needed to master jhāna. He notes that when the discourses show the Buddha sending disciples off to meditate, they quote him as saying "go do jhana", never "go do vipassana". DN 22's definition of right concentration as the four jhānas is part of the same picture. Pa-Auk treats jhāna, or at least access concentration, as the basis for insight.

The case for momentary concentration

Spirit Rock Meditation Center, which draws on the Mahasi lineage, describes Mahasi's method as continuous mental noting that supports "momentary concentration" (khaṇika samādhi). Nyanaponika calls this bare insight, while stressing that it still needs strong concentration.

The Goenka tradition takes a similar position in its own terms. The glossary of the Discourse Summaries says momentary concentration is sufficient preparation to begin Vipassana. It describes the jhānas as bringing tranquillity and bliss without uprooting the deepest mental defilements. Goenka's Day Two discourse adds that concentration alone is not the aim: right concentration, as he defines it, is awareness of present reality without craving or aversion, sustained from moment to moment.

What the positions share

None of these sources says insight can do without concentration. Pa-Auk builds it first, Nyanaponika calls a high degree of it "required", and Goenka's course trains it before Vipassana begins. They also agree on where insight leads: Pa-Auk's page and Nyanaponika's introduction speak of seeing impermanence, suffering and non-self, and Goenka's discourses of experiencing impermanence directly within oneself. The difference is in the route, and AN 4.170 already names more than one.

The next guide, The 10-day course, day by day, describes how one tradition puts a short period of calm and a longer period of insight into a single course.