What are khanika, Upacara and Appana Samadhi?

Totally different meditation system. Like other non-buddhist samādhi training systems, they are workable systems that have interesting features in their own right, but they can be very problematic if you try to incorporate it as part of an organic holistic EBT noble eightfold path, as Vism. tries to do. Best to completely avoid it.

The only meditators that I’ve seen that thrive in that system are highly skilled meditators that were likely highly skilled meditators in many previous lives, and would likely succeed under any kind of samādhi training system, buddhist or otherwise. For the vast majority of people, an EBT based organic holistic samma samādhi as part of a balanced noble eightfold path will work much better.

This thread has references to extensive detail on the difference between Vism. redefinition of jhāna compared to EBT jhāna.

1 Like