The Noble Eightfold Path: Step Eight: Right Samadhi

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This week we arrive at the final step of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right Samadhi, often translated as concentration or absorption. If the earlier steps help us see clearly and act with intention, this final step gathers the mind into a unified experience.

Right Samadhi is not about forcing the mind to focus. It begins with learning to place attention on one thing and come back when it wanders. From there, it deepens into the ability to give your attention fully to another person. And eventually, it points beyond both of those, toward a loosening of the sense that there is a separate “you” paying attention to something else.

In this episode, I explore Right Samadhi through three lenses: foundational, relational, and transformational.

Highlights

• What Right Samadhi actually means beyond “concentration”
• Why the ability to focus is becoming rare and why it matters
• Meditation as training attention
• Attention as the basis of love
• What it means to truly listen to another person
• The challenge of stepping outside self-focused attention
• The possibility of awareness without a subject or object
• Right Samadhi as the culmination of the Noble Eightfold Path

Music After Party

This week I share “Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears” by A Winged Victory for the Sullen.

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Produced by Citizens of Sound

Music by: Derek O'Brien

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