What's the difference between trance and meditation?

[Varis]

I commonly see the words "trance" and "meditation" often used interchangeably, or combined into "meditative trance", is there a difference? If I beat a drum to enter a trance is that the same as practicing samatha on a sound? If they're different, is there any place for trance in Buddhist (or Bon) practice?

[Aryjna]

I don't think I have ever seen the word trance used in a text related to Buddhism, much less being used interchangeably with meditation. Since most of the definitions of trance imply that it is some kind of stupefied state, it is probably irrelevant to any meaningful kind of meditation.

[heart]

I commonly see the words "trance" and "meditation" often used interchangeably, or combined into "meditative trance", is there a difference? If I beat a drum to enter a trance is that the same as practicing samatha on a sound? If they're different, is there any place for trance in Buddhist (or Bon) practice?

Yes, oracles enter something that could be called trance. In general what people call "meditation" don't correspond much to the Buddhist tradition.

/magnus

[mikenz66]

I don't think I have ever seen the word trance used in a text related to Buddhism, much less being used interchangeably with meditation. Since most of the definitions of trance imply that it is some kind of stupefied state, it is probably irrelevant to any meaningful kind of meditation.

Some of the early translations of Pali texts used trance as a translation for jhana, perhaps because the translators really didn't understand the material. Or, to be more charitable, perhaps "trance" had different connotations back then.

Upekhā Suttaɱ
Balanced
Translated by F. L. Woodward
Edited by Mrs. Rhys Davids

...
Friends, when I was meditating alone here,
this consideration arose in me:
"They say 'the fourth trance,
the third trance!'
Now what is the fourth trance?"
Then, friends, this occurred to me:
Herein a brother,
rejecting pleasure,
rejecting pain,
by the coming to an end
of the joy and sorrow which he had before,
enters on and abides in
the fourth trance,
which is freed from pleasure,
freed from pain,
but is a state
of perfect purity of balance and equanimity.
This is called "the fourth trance."
...
http://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts ... od.pts.htm

Mike

[Motova]

If you're really interested you can buy this: https://www.amazon.ca/Hypnosis-Meditati ... d+hypnosis

[Varis]

I don't think I have ever seen the word trance used in a text related to Buddhism, much less being used interchangeably with meditation. Since most of the definitions of trance imply that it is some kind of stupefied state, it is probably irrelevant to any meaningful kind of meditation.

I've seen the words used interchangeably in some translations.

Yes, oracles enter something that could be called trance. In general what people call "meditation" don't correspond much to the Buddhist tradition.

/magnus

Now that you mentioned it, do those practices constitute a method to liberation for oracles?

[heart]

Yes, oracles enter something that could be called trance. In general what people call "meditation" don't correspond much to the Buddhist tradition.

/magnus

Now that you mentioned it, do those practices constitute a method to liberation for oracles?

I think the party line is a no, but I have no experience in other paths so I just don't know.

/magnus

[Wayfarer]

I had thought that the 'states of jhana' in the Pali text corresponded to trance states (or 'rapture'). And I don't really see why 'trance' is a pejorative term or something that ought to be avoided. There are many accounts of yogis (Buddhist and other) entering states where their metabolic signs slow right down and they become indifferent to external stimuli. As I understand it, it is said not to be necessary to enter into such states, although I think there has been a lot of discussion in the tradition as to whether it is necessary to be able to enter such states. (I imagine however that it's not one of the kinds of practices that lends itself well to large-scale dissemination of meditation as a popular practice.)

[Fortyeightvows]

Rapture is usually used for piti.
Along with sukha, it is an element of the first jhanas. Not a synonym

[Fortyeightvows]

One may be able to say that the sensory shut down meditations could be called a trance

[XXIlluminatingVoid72]

To me, "trance", means without lucid awareness. Or without intentional involvement, like mediumship. The person is absent in some way in a negative sense, instead of meditation, when ordinary mind, becomes absent.