Dhyana in Buddhism

Dhyāna
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinChán
Wade–GilesCh’an
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingsim4
Tibetan name
Tibetanབསམ་གཏན
Transcriptions
Wyliebsam gtan
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabetThiền
Hán-Nôm
Korean name
Hangul
Hanja
Transcriptions
Revised RomanizationSeon
McCune–ReischauerSŏn
Japanese name
Kanji禅定 or 静慮
Transcriptions
RomanizationZenjyō or Jyōryo
Filipino name
TagalogDhyana
Sanskrit name
Sanskritध्यान (in Devanagari)
Dhyāna (Romanised)
Pāli name
Pāli𑀛𑀸𑀦 (in Brāhmī)
ඣාන (in Sinhala)
ឈាន/ធ្យាន (in Khmer)
ဈာန် (in Burmese)
ၛာန် (in Mon)
Jhāna (Romanised)
ฌาน (in Thai)
Statue of Buddha depicted in dhyana
Buddha depicted in dhyāna, Amaravati, India

In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna (Sanskrit: ध्यान) or jhāna (Pali: 𑀛𑀸𑀦) is a component of the training of the mind (bhavana), commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions and "burn up" the defilements, leading to a "state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi)."[1] Dhyāna may have been the core practice of pre-sectarian Buddhism, in combination with several related practices which together lead to perfected mindfulness and detachment.[2][3][4]

In the later commentarial tradition, which has survived in present-day Theravāda, dhyāna is equated with "concentration", a state of one-pointed absorption in which there is a diminished awareness of the surroundings. In the contemporary Theravāda-based Vipassana movement, this absorbed state of mind is regarded as unnecessary and even non-beneficial for the first stage of awakening, which has to be reached by mindfulness of the body and vipassanā (insight into impermanence). Since the 1980s, scholars and practitioners have started to question these positions, arguing for a more comprehensive and integrated understanding and approach, based on the oldest descriptions of dhyāna in the suttas.[5][6][7][8]

In Buddhist traditions of Chán and Zen (the names of which are, respectively, the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations of dhyāna), as in Theravada and Tiantai, anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing), which is transmitted in the Buddhist tradition as a means to develop dhyana, is a central practice. In the Chan/Zen-tradition this practice is ultimately based on Sarvastivāda meditation techniques transmitted since the beginning of the Common Era.