Samatha meditation and vipassana meditation

Two methods of Buddhist meditation

Phra Ajan Jerapunyo, Abbot of Watkungtaphao, meditating in Sirikit Dam, Thailand. Wikimedia Commons.

If you read about it, you'll find endless discussions among learned monks.
Essentially, the issue boils down to three attitudes:
 - You can attain enlightenment by samatha (serenity) meditation alone.
 - You can attain enlightenment by vipassana (insight) meditation alone.
 - You need both.

Let's see the problem with a little more detail.

Samatha meditation

This is what I tried to introduce in a previous post. You calm your mind's ripples by focusing on a single very well defined meditation subject, like breath, blue, water, or the Buddha - there are forty of them. When a sensory input or a thought arrives, you mindfully return to your meditation subject.

If you can still your mind enough, you are now practicing samadhi. Further along, sometimes you get a sign (nimitta) - colors, shapes, sounds, scents - which shows you are entering jhana (Pali for the Sanscrit dhyana). Some say you can enter jhana without the nimitta appearing first. There are four jhana states, or levels, which can be followed by four formless attainments, in a progression from grosser to more refined forms of consciousness.

Simple suttas blog. Pt. 2 Is Jhana Really Necessary (hint: yes)

The Buddha said that His enlightenment occurred after attaining all four jhanas and then the four formless states. At His death bed, He walked through the four jhanas in direct, then reverse, then direct order again, and He died in what is called His Parinibbana (state beyond nirvana, or nirvana in death).

Many modern meditation masters, such as the Pa Auk Sayadaw or Ajahn Brahm, consider that jhana is the way to nibbana (nirvana).

Don't overthink this. Keep on with mindfulness of breathing, for all your life if need be.

Vipassana meditation

Vipassana is more analytical. You are trying to get insight into the nature of all phenomena as impermanent, suffering, and selfless (anicca, dukkha, anatta).

Anicca-dukkha-anatta, by Michael Bond.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/anicca-dukkha-anatta-michael-bond.html

So, when a sensory input or a thought arrives at your mind, you watch it with detachment and see it arise, stay for a while and go away. I mentioned this earlier relating to the pain that - always! - happens after some time of sitting meditation.

Vipassana meditation is spread worldwide today, thanks to the work of a lay master, S. N. Goenka, a pupil of another layman, Sayagyi U Ba Khin (once accountant general of Burma), who learned vipassana meditation with Webu Sayadaw, a monk who was regarded as enlightened. All three were Burmese so, in a way, the modern Vipassana Movement was born in Burma.

So, what should I do?

A polemic took place between the Burmese Mahasi Sayadaw and the Sri Lankan monk Soma Thera, in the late 1950s. The Sayadaw defended that nibbana is attainable by 'dry insight' - vipassana alone - and the other monk defended the necessity of samadhi. There is an account of this polemic in Satipatthana Vipassana: Criticisms and Replies. Dry.

Mahasi Sayadaw. http://www.mahasiusa.org/sayadaw.html

If you google "vipassana meditation" you get 733,000 hits, while "jhana meditation" gets you 129,000. On the other hand, if you search "vipassana" and "jhana" in accesstoinsight.org you get 155 and 368 hits, respectively. This shows that, while vipassana, maybe because it seems easier, has a much wider global following, the Dhamma texts, on the other hand, have much more samatha references.

My experience tells me that you cannot have the necessary concentration to observe the transient nature of all phenomena without previous samatha practice. If you take a vipassana 10-days course from the Goenka 'school', you'll find that the first two days are dedicated to samatha meditation. You should, by the way.

"Serenity and insight are the two great wings of Buddhist meditation. They each have a special role to play in the path to Awakening. While some modern approaches seek to marginalize serenity in favor of ‘dry’ insight, the Buddha’s own discourses place serenity right at the center of the path" in A Swift Pair of Messengers by Bhante Sujato (the messengers are samatha and vipassana.)

Anyway...

Don't overthink this. Keep on with mindfulness of breathing.