Samayika

Sāmāyika is the vow of periodic concentration observed by the Jains. It is one of the essential duties prescribed for both the Śrāvaka (householders) and ascetics. The preposition sam means one state of being. To become one is samaya. That, which has oneness as its object, is sāmāyikam. Sāmāyika is aimed at developing equanimity and to refrain from injury.

On the third pratimā (stage) the householder resolves to observe the sāmāyika vow three times a day.

According to the Jain text, Purushartha Siddhyupaya:

After renouncing all attachments and aversions, and adopting a sense of equanimity in all objects, one should practise, many times, periodic concentration (sāmāyika), the principal means to realize the true nature of the Self.

Sāmāyika is also one of the five kinds of conduct (cāritra) other kinds being reinitiation, purity of non-injury, slight passion and perfect conduct. It is of two kinds — with and without time limit.

The sāmāyika is performed for an antara-muhurta (about 48 minutes) every day. Champat Rai Jain in his book The Key of Knowledge writes:

Sāmāyika aims at the attainment of divinity through perfection in conduct, which, consisting, as it does, in the purest and most complete form of renunciation, is the sole and the immediate cause of salvation, that is of wholeness and freedom from the pain and misery of saṃsāra (births and deaths). The layman who has just entered the path observes the sāmāyika meditation but once daily in the morning, for he is not able to tear himself away from business and pleasure at that early stage in his spiritual career to be able to perform it more often; but as he progresses onwards, he takes to its observance three times – morning, noon and evening – every day, gradually extending its duration also from one antaramuhurta to three times as much at each sitting. The ascetic who has successfully passed through the preliminary stages of renunciation, as a householder, is expected to be an embodiment of desirelessness itself, so that his whole life is, as it were, a continuous sāmāyika from one end to the other.

In performing sāmāyika, the śrāvaka has to stand facing north or east and bow to the Pañca-Parameṣṭhi. He then sit down and recites the Namokara mantra a certain number of times, and finally devotes himself to holy meditation. This consists in:

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Wikipedia