Venerable Sir, would you kindly explain Right Concentration (sammā-samādhi).

‘Right Concentration’ (sammā-samādhi) is the product of the first seven steps of the Noble Eightfold Path. When these first seven constituent steps of the Noble Eightfold Path are well developed, the concentrated mind of meditative absorption (jhāna) that arises as a result, of which the five mental hindrances―namely, desire for sense pleasures, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and scruples, and sceptical doubt―are subdued, is called Right Concentration.

Even in the mind of samādhi that is of meditative absorption, craving still lurks. Buddha refers to the samādhi imbued with meditative absorption as the enjoyment (assāda) in feeling. Where there is enjoyment, there is bound to be an adverse consequence (ādīnava). While enjoyment gives rise to pleasure, the adverse consequence begets suffering. In the samādhi, you would perceive, “There is samādhi in me,” “The soul is in samādhi,” or “In that soul there is samādhi.” Simply as a result, you invariably become attached to the enjoyment born out of the samādhi. For this reason alone, having clung to meditative absorptions, you take rebirth in the brahma worlds of the fine-material or non-material sphere without having escaped the fourfold hell. And as a result, you continue to lapse into the suffering of ‘becoming,’ again and again. 

Restraint of the sense-faculties―eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind―comes about when one abstains from unwholesome actions and grows stronger in wholesome actions. This restraint of the sense-faculties forms the foundation for the worldly Right Concentration. The mind of meditative absorption that forms strictly as its result is the fruit of Right Concentration.

Venerable Sir, what is supermundane Right Concentration (lokuttara sammā-samādhi)?

When one beholds worldly Right Concentration with penetrative insight-wisdom, there arises supermundane Right Concentration. Craving does not lurk in supermundane Right Concentration. One who knows full well the enjoyment and the adverse consequences in samādhi will be a person who finds the way to escape (nissarana) feeling. Such a one wisely contemplates how, after spending many a long eon in the brahma worlds of the fine-material and non-material spheres through mastery of samādhi in the round of rebirths past, they once again plunged down to the fourfold hell; how, in the past, they levitated or travelled by supernatural powers through mastery of meditative absorptions of the fine-material and non-material spheres. The one who has formed supermundane Right Concentration is skilful in seeing all these karma-formations of the samādhi as impermanent. So, they won’t become attached to the mind of meditative absorption forming at present. It is while seeing the impermanence of the very mind of meditative absorption that they enjoy the serenity it produces. They’re adept at discerning that it is when the longness of in-breath and out-breath became impermanent that the shortness of in-breath and out-breath came into being; it is when the shortness of in-breath and out-breath became impermanent that ‘thought-conception and discursive thinking’ (vitakka-vicāra) quieted down; it is when thought-conception and discursive thinking became impermanent that rapture (pīti) and joy (sukha) arose; it is when rapture and joy became impermanent that the mind became equanimous (upekkhā). Like this, seeing with penetrative insight-wisdom the true nature, the transient nature, of samādhi, they’re skilful to do away with the craving for samādhi, thereby uncovering the true escape (nissarana).

The one who has formed supermundane Right Concentration sees that the mind of samādhi, the mind of meditative absorption, is merely a formation of the five clinging aggregates that forms centred around rūpa. They see that to regard samādhi as permanent would be to take the five clinging aggregates as permanent. Therefore, to be rid of craving for the five clinging aggregates by extricating oneself from the craving for samādhi would be supermundane Right Concentration. It is as a product of this supermundane Right Concentration that the ‘noble insight-faculties’ (sammā-ñāna) arise in you, and through them noble deliverance (sammā-vimutti) is realized.