The name of the fifth paramita, samten in Tibetan, dhyana in Sanskrit, goes by various names in English. Ken Holmes, in his translation of the classic Kagyu guide to the path, Gampopa’s Ornament of Precious Liberation, calls this paramita meditative concentration; while RIngu Tulku Rinpoche, in his companion to OPL, Path to Buddhahood, simplifies it to meditation, as do a number of other contemporary sources. My preferred translation is meditative stability. This paramita refers not merely to the practice of meditation, but to the skill we develop through consistent shamatha practice of being able to place our mind single-pointedly on an object, or on the flow of our experience, without getting completely lost in thoughts or emotions.
Why is this paramita important? RIngu Tulku Rinpoche: “Even if we can master the four paramitas mentioned previously, without meditation our mind will stay out of control and under the influence of distraction… It will then be impossible to get out of samsara, to free ourselves from confusion, and even to help others.”
Let’s recall the Buddha’s own four-line summary of the path. The first four paramitas — generosity, ethical conduct, patience, and joyful diligence — are all ways of practicing the first two instructions: to refrain from harmful actions and engage in virtue. With the fifth paramita, we are now engaging with the third instruction: to tame our own mind utterly. Practicing meditation consistently in order to develop stable attention is how we tame our mind.
How do we actually practice meditation in order to cultivate meditative stability? According to Gampopa, we first need to apply the three solitudes: 1) solitude of the body (finding a place to meditate where we’re unlikely to be interrupted, whether it’s a retreat or a quiet corner of our home; setting aside a time to meditate; and then doing it); 2) solitude of speech (during meditation, we refrain from engagement with the outside world — traditionally by not speaking, but these days we might need to include not interacting with our phone or other devices; and 3) solitude of mind (resolving not to follow thoughts and sense perceptions, that is, to disengage from them again and again as soon as we realize we’re distracted). From Path to Buddhahood: “Solitude of mind is crucial for meditation… We must leave behind all our daily activities, get rid of our preoccupations, and not plan what we should do.” Otherwise, “our meditation will never be truly stable.”
As for the meditation itself, we can then follow whatever instructions we’ve been given for placing our attention. In the Mahamudra tradition, we typically begin by training the mind to focus on an object such as the breath, sounds, or a visual or visualized object, and then we move on to letting go of working with an object, and training instead in remaining attentive to the flow of whatever may arise in our experience (sense perceptions, thoughts, emotions). We practice in this way again and again, daily if possible, in order to gradually attain stability.
One more step that Gampopa and Ringu Tulku Rinpoche include is to identify our predominant afflictive emotion (desire, anger, jealousy, pride, or ignorance) and apply the corresponding remedy in our meditation.The reason for this is that the afflictive emotions are our primary distractions in meditation, as well as the main obstructions to our potential to see the true nature of things as they are. The late Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche said in his book on the bardos, Journey of the Mind, that this step is essential to taming our mind. Here’s more on how to do it.
For more on the six paramitas: 37 practices six paramitas overview
Guru Vajradhara Tai Situ Rinpoche on the six paramitas (videos)
Ringu Tulku Rinpoche on the six paramitas (video)