About This Teaching
Why must there be concentration for contemplation to penetrate? Ajahn Dtun compares samādhi to sleep: after enough rest one works energetically, but without it one has no energy and work is done poorly. Someone with five or eight precepts but no samādhi still has mindfulness and intelligence, yet lacks the power to cut through defilements.
He likens samādhi to sharpening a knife: a blunt knife unused for a long time will not cut meat, but once sharpened it cuts easily. Sīla, samādhi and paññā all arise in the one heart, like a mango that is the same fruit whether unripe or ripe.
Without concentration, trying to contemplate the body fails because the mind wanders into the past, the future and other matters. One first gathers the mind into one through mindfulness of the meditation object, rests in calm, and when the mind withdraws from that calm, brings up the body for investigation. Energised by the rest, mindfulness and wisdom can then see its impermanence and not-self nature.