Dhyana
ध्यान (dhyāna)
Meditation proper: attention flowing toward one object steadily enough to stop commenting on itself. Read in English
ध्यान — एक ही विषय की ओर इतनी स्थिरता से बहता हुआ अवधान कि मन की टिप्पणी रुक जाए।
In Patanjali's eight-limbed scheme, dhyana is the seventh limb - not the beginning of practice but nearly its ripening. First comes dharana, the repeated placing of attention on one object; dhyana is what happens when the placing holds, and attention flows without needing to be reset.
The word travelled well: dhyana became chan in China and zen in Japan. Across those crossings the core remained - a state in which the meditator, the meditating, and the object begin to lose their seams.
Nothing about this is exotic in miniature. Anyone absorbed in a craft has tasted continuity of attention. Practice differs from absorption only in choosing a deliberately quiet object, so the continuity itself - not the entertainment - becomes the point.