Our FBA Dharmabyte today is titled: and#8220;Meditative Experienceand#8221; from the 1967 talk by Sangharakshita titled Meditation: the Expanding Consciousness. In this excerpt, Bhante explains the the three stages of meditation: samata, samapatti, and samadhi.

Samata is the experience of tranquility, calm and equanimity of mind as discursive mental activity recedes. Samapatti represents an immense variety of experiences. Described as attainments in meditation from changes in temperature and seeing multi-colored lights to flashes of insight. Samadhi is carefully described as a blissful state, translucent, free from the dichotomy of subject and object, as consciousness in expanded from the mundane to the transcendental.