Editing Samadhi (section)

=== Buddhist influences ===
{{further|Dhyāna in Buddhism}}

Patanjali's description of ''samādhi'' resembles the Buddhist ''jhānas''.{{sfn|Pradhan|2015|p=151-152}}{{refn|group=note|See also [https://web.archive.org/web/20141204174415/http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Articles/A%20Comparison%20of%20Hindu%20and%20Buddhist%20Techniques%20of%20Attaining%20Samadhi_Crangle_1984.pdf Eddie Crangle (1984), ''Hindu and Buddhist techniques of Attaining Samadhi'']}} According to Jianxin Li, ''samprajñata samādhi'' may be compared to the ''rūpa jhāna''s of Buddhism.{{sfn|Jianxin Li|2018}} This interpretation may conflict with Gombrich and Wynne, according to whom the first and second ''jhāna'' represent concentration, whereas the third and fourth ''jhāna'' combine concentration with mindfulness.{{sfn|Wynne|2007|p=106; 140, note 58}} According to Eddie Crangle, the first ''jhāna'' resembles Patanjali's ''samprajñata samādhi'', which both share the application of ''vitarka'' and ''vicara''.{{sfn|Crangle|1984|p=191}}

According to [[David Gordon White]], the language of the ''Yoga Sūtras'' is often closer to "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, the Sanskrit of the early Mahāyana Buddhist scriptures, than to the classical Sanskrit of other Hindu scriptures".{{sfn|White|2014|p=10}} According to Karel Werner:
{{blockquote|Patanjali's system is unthinkable without Buddhism. As far as its terminology goes there is much in the Yoga Sutras that reminds us of Buddhist formulations from the [[Pāli Canon]] and even more so from the [[Sarvastivada]] [[Abhidharma]] and from [[Sautrāntika]]".{{sfn|Werner|1994|p=27}}}}

[[Robert Thurman]] writes that Patañjali was influenced by the success of the [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] monastic system to formulate his own matrix for the version of thought he considered orthodox.{{sfn|Thurman|1984|p=34}} However, the Yoga Sutra, especially the fourth segment of Kaivalya Pada, contains several polemical verses critical of Buddhism, particularly the Vijñānavāda school of Vasubandhu.{{sfn|Farquhar|1920|p=132}}

While Patañjali was influenced by Buddhism, and incorporated Buddhist thought and terminology,{{sfn|Werner|1994|p=26}}{{sfn|White|2014|p=10, 19}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Thurman |title=The Central Philosophy of Tibet |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1984 |page=34}}</ref> the term "''nirvikalpa samādhi''" is unusual in a Buddhist context, though some authors have equated ''nirvikalpa samādhi'' with the [[Dhyāna in Buddhism#The arūpa āyatanas|formless jhānas]] and/or ''nirodha samāpatti''.<ref>Partial transcript from the workshop entitled “Self-Discovery through Buddhist Meditation”, presented by John Myrdhin Reynolds at Phoenix, Arizona, on October 20, 2001, http://www.vajranatha.com/articles/what-is-meditation.html?showall=1 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200305125538/http://www.vajranatha.com/articles/what-is-meditation.html?showall=1 |date=2020-03-05 }}</ref><ref>Donald Jay Rothberg, Sean M. Kelly (1998), ''Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers''</ref><ref>Candradhara Śarmā (1996), The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy: A Study of Advaita in Buddhism, Vedānta and Kāshmīra Shaivism, Motilal Banarsidass, p.139: "In the Buddhist works, both in Pale and in Sanskrit, the words used for nirvikalpa-samadhi are samnja-vedayita-nirodha and nirodha-samāpatti".</ref>{{sfn|Jianxin Li|2018}}

A similar term, ''{{IAST|nirvikalpa-jñāna}}'', is found in the Buddhist [[Yogacara]] tradition, and is translated by [[Edward Conze]] as "undifferentiated cognition".{{sfn|Conze|1962|p=253}} Conze notes that, in Yogacara, only the actual experience of ''{{IAST|nirvikalpa-jñāna}}'' can prove the reports given of it in scriptures. He describes the term as used in the Yogacara context as follows:
{{blockquote|The "undiscriminate cognition" knows first the unreality of all objects, then realizes that without them also the knowledge itself falls to the ground, and finally directly intuits the supreme reality. Great efforts are made to maintain the paradoxical nature of this [[gnosis]]. Though without concepts, judgements and discrimination, it is nevertheless not just mere thoughtlessness. It is neither a cognition nor a non-cognition; its basis is neither thought nor non-thought.... There is here no duality of subject and object. The cognition is not different from that which is cognized, but completely identical with it.{{sfn|Conze|1962|p=253, footnote ‡}}{{refn|group=note|Routledge 2013 edition: note 854}}}} A different sense in Buddhist usage occurs in the Sanskrit expression ''{{IAST|nirvikalpayati}}'' ([[Pali]]: ''{{IAST|nibbikappa}}'') that means "makes free from uncertainty (or false discrimination)" i.e. "distinguishes, considers carefully".{{sfn|Edgerton|1953|p=304, volume 2}}