Thoughts, Meditative Concentration, and the Celestial Realms of Beings in the Three Realms

Greed means craving and grasping; love means fondness and delight. When one no longer feels fondness and delight toward the three realms, love is severed; once love is severed, the karma of the three realms is ended. When sensual craving is severed, the bonds of the desire realm are severed, and one can transcend the desire realm; the first dhyāna of the form realm will necessarily appear, and at the end of life one can be reborn in the heavens of the form realm. Those with severe sexual craving cannot only not attain the first dhyāna, they cannot even attain the threshold concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) of the desire realm, nor even the coarsest, shallowest meditative concentration of the desire realm—thus they have not a trace of dhyāna or samādhi.

This is because all meditative concentration corresponds to the states of celestial beings, not to the states of the human world; when the mind's nature is higher than that of humans, one's state is higher than that of humans. A person who has desire-realm concentration has certainly grown indifferent to worldly desires in the human realm; a person who has form-realm concentration has grown indifferent to the states of humans, ghosts, animals, and desire-realm devas; a person who has formless-realm concentration has grown indifferent to the states of the form realm and the desire realm.

Whether or not one has meditative concentration depends entirely on the mind's thoughts. The moment a thought stirs, concentration vanishes—such is the power of mental thoughts. Those who complain that they cannot cultivate meditative concentration well should examine whether the thoughts in their minds are tranquil (praśama), and whether they are too entangled with the people, affairs, and things of the human world, with every thought fixed on worldly matters. If the thoughts are not tranquil, then enduring the pain of sitting and forcibly cultivating concentration is of no use.