Dōan vs Samatha

"Dōan - person who leads a meditation session using bells to keep time and nurture an atmosphere of focus and clarity" Dōan is an unguided meditation timer that periodically reminds you to return focus to your meditation practice using gentle gong sounds. You can: - Configure the length of each session and how often you want to be nudged to return your focus - Choose your favourite gong sounds from multiple recordings - Turn off your screen: The app will keep running in the background even when the screen is locked or turned off

Samatha is a quiet instrument for practitioners of The Mind Illuminated (TMI), the meditation manual by Culadasa (John Yates, PhD). It is not a content library. It is the tool you reach for twice a day: a sit timer with a hand-tuned singing bowl, an honest check-in, and the traditional ten-stage painting — alive, interactive, and centered on where YOU are. THE SIT • Wall-clock timer (survives locks and calls), gentle start and end bowls • Mindfulness bells: halfway, every 5 minutes, or random — the honest startle test for subtle dullness • Six-point preparation and four-step transition, straight from the practice • Your last note to yourself, shown exactly when it helps: before you sit • Live Activity on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island • A sit can never be lost — killed app, reboot: everything is restored THE HONEST STAGE LOGIC • After each sit, check what you actually experienced — each observation votes • A sit's lived stage is the median of its votes; in doubt, the lower one • The app NEVER promotes you. After three consecutive diagnosed sits above your stage, it points you to the book's mastery criteria — you confirm, honestly • Going back a stage after a pause is one tap. That's not failure, that's practice THE PATH • The traditional ten-stage elephant painting, fully interactive • Every stage: what to practice, what to avoid, the signs you're there, obstacles and graduated antidotes, mastery criteria • A safety card for destabilizing experiences — because a serious tool carries the book's guardrails, not just its techniques YOUR JOURNAL • Every sit, monthly sections, full CSV export anytime • Automatic, private iCloud backup — your data never touches our servers (there are none) Free. No ads. No account. No tracking. Independent app, not affiliated with Dharma Treasure or the authors. Original text throughout.