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Second Dhyana Level | The Six Paramitas


The second dhyana is the dhyana of ordinary beings who have learned about the Buddhadharma and the laws of cause and effect (karma). People practicing at this level place great emphasis on samadhi and abide in it, taking it to be liberation. Often what they experience is just the unity of body and mind, of the inner and outer environments, of previous and following thoughts. This is often described as being one with the universe. In their samadhi, they experience the four dhyana heavens of form and formlessness, including the dhyana heavens of thought and no-thought. They experience a kind of emptiness, but not the true emptiness of genuine wisdom. Thus, they will often mistake the four dhyana heavens as the four fruition levels of the arhat,1 and think they are liberated.

While experiencing samadhi, they will have no greed, no doubt, no burden of body and mind, and will think that they have been liberated. But once they come out of samadhi and deal with loved ones, family property and wealth, their vexations inevitably return. When this happens, they will want to enter samadhi and experience bliss again. The main difference between the first two kinds of dhyana is whether or not the practitioner has been exposed to the teachings of Buddhadharma.

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Venerable Sheng Yen is a well-known Buddhist monk, Buddhist scholar, and educator. In 1969, he went to Japan for further studies and obtained a doctoral degree from Rissho University in 1975, becoming the first ordained monk in Chinese Buddhism to pursue and successfully complete a Ph.D. in Japan.
Sheng Yen taught in the United States starting in 1975, and established Chan Meditation Center in Queens, New York, and its retreat center, Dharma Drum Retreat Center at Pine Bush, New York in 1997. He also visited many countries in Europe, as well as continuing his teaching in several Asian countries, in particular Taiwan.
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