Meditation Is an Unbroken Flow Toward That One Place

📝Reflection

Dhyāna is dhāraṇā come to ripeness. Eka-tānatā means "extended as one thread" — a flow unbroken like a single strand. If dhāraṇā "tethers" the mind to one place, dhyāna is the mind "flowing" toward that place of itself. Pour water and at first it comes in drips, but as the flow continues it becomes a single thread. So too with focus. At first we grasp and lose, grasp and lose; ripened, the mind flows to its object without effort. Rendered into Chinese characters, this word became Zen (禪). From the effortful tethering of dhāraṇā to the self-continuing flow of dhyāna — in that passage lies the ripening of practice.