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Samatha (Pāli), (Sanskrit: शमथ, śamatha; also romanized to shamatha, Tib. ཞི་གནས་, shyiné; Wylie: zhi gnas; English: "calm" or "tranquility") refers to that dimension of Buddhist spiritual cultivation (Bhavana) concerned with the calming of the mind (Citta) and its 'formations' (Sankhara).

When calm the mind is capable of concentration (Samadhi) and is put into a suitable frame for the arising of insight (vipassana) and thus Wisdom (Pañña).

In Buddhism, calmness and concentration of mind are considered to be dependent on the presence of morality (Śīla) in a person's Life.

With morality as the foundation, calming of the mind (samatha) and the arising of insight (vipassana) are summed up as the quintessence of Buddhist spiritual cultivation (Bhavana).

In Sri Lanka samatha includes all the meditations directed at static objects. In Burma, samatha comprises all concentration practices, aimed at calming the mind.


Samatha is commonly used in Theravada Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and various branches of the Pure land tradition.







The semantic field of shi and shama is "pacification", "the slowing or cooling down", "rest". The semantic field of né is "to abide or remain" and this is cognate or equivalent with the final syllable of the Sanskrit, thā.


In the Pali canon, the Buddhist path of practice is simplified into three divisions, namely Morality (sila), Concentration (Samadhi) and Wisdom (Pañña). Each division is dependent on the former.

For example, Wisdom (constituted by the arising of insight) is dependent on the mind's ability to be still and concentrate.

However, for the mind to be unruffled, a firm basis of morality must be present in the person's Life. Morality is the foundation of all Buddhist spiritual cultivation and of samatha (calm) in particular.

When the mind is calm, concentration not only becomes possible but tends to naturally arise in some form.

What is generically referred to as 'Buddhist meditation' by non-Buddhists is the calming and concentration of the mind in seated pose.





One of the principal techniques taught by The Buddha for this purpose is Mindfulness of breathing (Pali: anapanasati).


The goal is the establishing of Mindfulness as used in conjunction with insight (P: vipassanā; S: vipaśyanā) practices,

inquiry into the nature of the object, such as those encountered in the Dzogchen tradition, resulting in Wisdom (P: paññā, S: prajñā). Samatha is commonly practiced as a prelude to and in conjunction with Wisdom practices.


In the Theravada tradition there are forty objects of meditation. Mindfulness (sati) of breathing (ānāpāna: ānāpānasati; S. ānāpānasmṛti) is the most common samatha practice. Samatha can include other Samādhi practices as well.

Some meditation practices such as contemplation of a Kasina object favor the development of samatha, others such as contemplation of the aggregates are conducive to the development of vipassana, while others such as Mindfulness of breathing are classically used for developing both mental qualities.



The Buddha is said to have extolled serenity and insight as conduits for attaining the unconditioned state of Nibbana (Pāli; Skt.: Nirvana).

For example, in the Kimsuka Tree Sutta (SN 35.245), The Buddha provides an elaborate metaphor in which serenity and insight are "the swift pair of messengers" who deliver the message of Nibbana via the Noble Eightfold Path.


  3. They develop calm abiding and insight in tandem (Pāli: samatha-vipassanam yuganaddham), for instance, obtaining the first Jhāna and then seeing in the associated aggregates the three marks of existence before proceeding to the second Jhāna.

In the Pāli Canon, The Buddha never mentions independent samatha and vipassana meditation practices; instead, samatha and vipassana are two "qualities of mind" to be developed through meditation. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu writes,


When [the Pāli suttas depict The Buddha telling his disciples to go meditate, they never quote him as saying 'go do vipassana,' but always 'go do Jhana.' And they never equate the word "vipassana" with any Mindfulness techniques.



Some traditions speak of two types of meditation, insight meditation (vipassana) and calm meditation (samatha). In fact the two are indivisible facets of the same process. Calm is the peaceful Happiness born of meditation; insight is the clear understanding born of the same meditation. Calm leads to insight and insight leads to calm."

Contemporary Theravāda interpretations






Indo-Tibetan tradition

Mahayana sūtras




The Sūtra Unlocking the Mysteries (Samdhinirmocana Sūtra), a yogācāra Sūtra, is also often used as a source for teachings on śamatha. The Samādhirāja Sūtra is often cited as an important source for śamatha instructions by the Kagyu tradition,

particularly via commentary by Gampopa, although scholar Andrew Skilton, who has studied the Samādhirāja Sūtra extensively, reports that the Sūtra itself "contains no significant exposition of either meditational practices or states of mind."


Samatha furthers the Right concentration aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path. The successful result of samatha is also sometimes characterized as meditative absorption (Samādhi, ting nge ’dzin) and meditative equipoise (samāhita, mnyam-bzhag), and freedom from the five obstructions (āvaraṇa, sgrib-pa). It may also result in the Siddhis of clairvoyance (abhijñā, mgon shes) and magical emanation (nirmāna, sprul pa).

Factors in śamatha

Nine mental abidings







3. Repeated attention (S. avasthāpana, Tib. བླན་ཏེ་འཇོག་པ - slan-te ’jog-pa) is when the practitioner's attention is fixed on the object for most of the practice session and he is able to immediately realize when he has lost his mental hold on the object and is able to restore that attention quickly. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche suggests that being able to maintain attention for 108 breaths is a good benchmark for when we have reached this stage.

4. Close attention(S. upasthāpana, Tib. ཉེ་བར་འཇོག་པ - nye-bar ’jog-pa) occurs when the practitioner is able to maintain his attention throughout the entire meditation session (an hour or more) without losing their mental hold on the meditation object at all. In this stage the practitioner achieves the Power of Mindfulness. Nevertheless, this stage still contains subtle forms of excitation and dullness or laxity.




9. Attentional Balance (S. samādhāna,Tib. མཉམ་པར་འཇོག་པ་བྱེད་པ་ - mnyam-par ’jog-pa) the meditator now effortlessly reaches absorbed concentration (ting-nge-‘dzin, S. Samadhi.) and can maintain it for about four hours without any single interruption.

(10. śamatha, Tib. ཞི་གནས, shyiné - the culmination, is sometimes listed as a tenth stage)

Five faults and eight antidotes

The system of the five faults and eight antidotes originates with Maitreyanātha's Madhyānta-vibhāga. The whole system is elaborated further in the three Bhāvanā krama texts (particularly the second one) of Kamalaśīla, a later author, and by generations of Tibetan commentators. Thus the following shamatha formulation derives originally from the Yogācāra tradition.

Five faults


1. Laziness (Kausīdya, le-lo)
2. forgetting the instruction (avavādasammosa, gdams-nga brjed-pa)
3. laxity (laya, bying-ba) and excitement (Auddhatya, rgod-pa). Laxity may be coarse (audārika, rags-pa) or subtle (sūksma, phra-mo). Lethargy (Styāna, rmugs-pa) is often also present, but is said to be less common.
5. overapplication (abhisamskāra, ’du byed-pa)

Eight antidotes


for Laziness:

1. Faith (śraddhā, dad-pa)
i. contemplate faults of distraction (Vikṣepa, rnam-par gyen-ba)
2. aspiration (Chanda, ’dun-pa)
3. exertion (vyayama, rtsol-ba)
4. pliancy (Praśrabdhi, shin-sbyangs)
for forgetting the instruction:
5. mindfulness (smṛti, dran-pa)
for laxity and excitement
6. awareness (samprajaña, shes-bzhin)
for non-application
7. application (abhisaṃskāra, ’du byed-pa)
for overapplication

Six Powers


1. hearing (śruta, thos-pa)
2. thinking (cintā, bsam-pa)
3. Mindfulness (smṛti, dran-pa)
4. awareness (samprajaña, shes-bzhin)
5. effort (Vīrya, brtson-’grus)

Four modes of mental enagagement



Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen





This is the very essence of tranquility meditation [in the context of Mahāmudrā [...] The Mahamudra style of meditation does not encourage us toward the different levels of meditative concentration traditionally described in the exoteric mediation manuals [...] From the Mahamudra point of view, we should not desire meditative equipoise nor have an aversion to discursive thoughts and conflicting emotions but view both of these states with Equanimity.



For the Kagyupa, in the context of mahāmudrā, śamatha by means of Mindfulness of breathing is thought to be the ideal way for the meditator to transition into taking the mind itself as the object of meditation and generating vipaśyanā on that basis.

Quite similar is the approach to śamatha found in Dzogchen semde (Sanskrit: mahāsandhi cittavarga).

In the semde system, śamatha is the first of the four yogas (Tib. naljor, Wylie: rnal-’byor), the others being vipaśyanā (Wylie: lhag-mthong), nonduality (advaya, Tib. nyime , Wylie: gnyis-med),

and spontaneous presence (anābogha or nirābogha, Tib. lhundrub, Wylie: lhun-grub). These parallel the four yogas of mahāmudrā.

In June of 1996 Ajahn Amaro established Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California, where he was co-abbot with Ajahn Pasanno until July, 2010 Ajahn Amaro returned to Amaravati in July, 2010 and as a longtime student in the Thai Forest Theravādin tradition of Ajahn Chah, has also trained in the Dzogchen semde śamatha approach under Tsoknyi Rinpoche. He found similarities in the approaches of the two traditions to śamatha.

Relationship with vipaśyanā

Dzogchen [Pönlop Rinpoche)] clearly charts the developmental relationship of the practices of śamatha and vipaśyanā:


Similar practices in other religions


Samatha in its single-pointed focus and concentration of mind is cognate with the sixth limb of aṣṭanga yoga', rāja yoga which is concentration (dhāraṇā). For further discussion, see the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.