Samatha meditation
I can explain the nature, purpose and significance of meditation, including samatha meditation, for Buddhists today.
Samatha meditation
I can explain the nature, purpose and significance of meditation, including samatha meditation, for Buddhists today.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.
These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- Purposes of meditation include developing a still, calm, focused mind; gaining greater wisdom of the Buddha’s Dhamma.
- Many non-Buddhists use meditation as a way to calm the mind, reduce stress and increase focus.
- Samatha is mainly used in Theravada Buddhism and encourages calmness with a focus on mindfulness of breathing.
- Some Buddhists use objects called kasinas to focus during meditation.
Keywords
Meditation - a spiritual experience that opens a person up to the highest state of consciousness
Mindfulness of breathing - a form of meditation found in Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism, which focuses on the practice of breathing
Samatha - a method of meditation; a state of calmness
Common misconception
The goal of samatha meditation is to achieve enlightenment or insight.
Samatha is primarily a concentration practice aimed at stilling the mind through focused attention, often using a single object like the breath or a visual object (kasina).
To help you plan your year 10 religious education lesson on: Samatha meditation, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 10 religious education lesson on: Samatha meditation, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 religious education lessons from the Buddhism: Practices unit, dive into the full secondary religious education curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
