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The Samadhi, a Buddhist term for contemplation, is awarded to the team who wins each Endurance Mission along with the pyramid piece. That team has the option to give it to any other team they want, and what's inside will seriously handicap the chosen team in the following day's Temple Mission.

As noted in the final endurance missions of Endurance and Endurance 2, it was an option for the winner of the last endurance mission to request that the samdhi be removed from play, generally on the condition that they would have to name the team they would have given it to if JD said no. While this option was potentially available in later seasons, the tradition of removing the last samadhi was not honoured starting in Endurance Hawaii. It is unknown what would happen if the endurance mission winner had tried to remove a samadhi if it wasn't the last samadhi that season.

Inside the Samadhi[]

In most cases, the Samadhi has these types of penalties:

  1. Time penalty, where the handicapped team usually had to wait a certain amount of time before they could start the challenge. One case though made the team start before everyone else.
  2. Additional tasks: an additional segment of the challenge they have to complete.
  3. A significant disadvantage placed at the beginning of the game, where it hampers their chances of winning.

At worse, although it only happened twice in the series (Squeeze Play and Balance Ball), it can prevent a team from competing in the next Temple Mission, guaranteeing them a loss and a possible trip to the Temple of Fate.

Overcoming the Samadhi[]

In very few cases, the Samadhi can be overcome. The first time of this circumstance was in Dial In, when, the Blue Team, despite having a 15 second penalty, ended up winning the Temple Mission.

Ever since then, only three other teams have overcome the Samadhi: Bagging on You, where the Yellow Team won with a five foot penalty, Fill 'Er Up where the Purple Team won with a five foot penalty, and Shark Bait, where the Red Team was only allowed to have one member compete. The last example is a more downplayed example since Red could only send one team while the winner of the other mission that day (Blue) sent the other and Blue could have sent Red if they wanted to.

Despite this, many teams came close to overcoming the Samadhi: On the Ropes, where Scooter on the Blue Team almost beat out Max on the Brown Team, and Walk the Plank, where Gray almost won despite starting 20 seconds earlier.

The winners of the final Endurance Missions on Endurance 1 and 2 (Blue and Orange respectfully) took the option to remove the samadhi from play on the condition they named the team they would have given the samadhi to. This would give everyone a fair chance in the following temple mission. This tradition though ended in Hawaii where, after Grey won the last endurance mission, they choose to still handicap Yellow despite being informed of the tradition. Since then, the only time a Samadhi was removed from play was after Endurance Fiji's Orange won the Blind Fate mission but that was because JD granted them the option to send a team to temple automatically (which was ultimately Yellow).

Special Samadhis[]

Twice on the show, there have been special types of Samadhis where the samadhi grants some type of power to the winner of the endurance mission rather than the usually format of being giving to other team to get a disadvantage.

The first was on Endurance: Hawaii where the winner of the Pipeline mission would receive an abnormally large samadhi which they could keep or give it to another team though it was noted by JD as a samadhi a team would want to get. Right after the mission, the winning team would choose to keep it or not. The team who has it would then break it. Its contents include a mini pyramid piece and a mini idol. These represented one of two options that the team could do: The pyramid piece represented the ability to take all of the pyramid pieces of one of the other teams. The Idol represented the ability for the team to switch partners with whoever they wanted. Ultimately, Gray team won the mission and kept the samadhi for themselves. They choose to take Yellow's 2 pyramid pieces (Purple had 3 but they were close to Gray),

The other special type of samadhi was featured on Endurance: High Sierras for the winner of Hot Potato, along with a pyramid piece. Unlike the other samadhis, JD decided to open it before the teams competed so that they knew what they were playing for: the winning team could switch any two of the other teams or give that power to the team of their choice. Blue won the mission but gave it to Red under the pretense that Red would switch partners with Green (presumably Aeriel would go to green and Cealey to Red as they claimed they wanted the other's partner) since Blue didn't want to be the ones to do the switching for fear that they would be targeted. However, this was a ruse planned by Purple. They wanted Blue to give it to Red who would then switch Ike from Blue with Connor from Gray. Purple was allied with Red and Green and thus didn't want them switched. Cameron showed hesitation after seeing how emotional people were getting but ultimately followed through with the plan.

Trivia[]

  • The Samadhi mostly comes in the shape of a clay urn with decorations, like shells and palm leaves on E3. The major exception was in E5, where it came in a log.
  • In both cases where a team was not allowed to compete in a Temple Mission due to the samadhi, they ended up going to the Temple of Fate.
  • In only one case in the series, a Samadhi which didn't say they can't play resulted in a team not being able to enter a challenge.
  • Every team who has beat the Samadhi has made it to at least the final three.
    • Four out of six Endurance Champions have received the Samadhi, with only one overcoming it.
  • The teams that finished in second place have received three Samadhis in the series, although only one of them did actually handicap the team in the Temple Mission.
  • The teams that have finished in fourth and eighth place have never received any Samadhis in the series.
  • Although it was never given out and the contents were never revealed, the Samadhi for Leap of Fate has been speculated by fans to be any of the following:
    • A time disadvantage where Yellow would have to jump for a certain amount of seconds before Blue and Red would start (time penalty)
    • Both team members being tied together at the ankle (significant disadvantage)
    • The spinning bar being a certain length higher (significant disadvantage)
    • The spinning bar going at double speed (significant disadvantage)
  • Although it was never given out and the contents were never revealed, the Samadhi for Plank Maze has been speculated by fans to be any of the following:
    • Random letter tiles to confuse Green (additional tasks)
    • Two or three extra barrels at the start of the challenge (additional tasks)
  • Prior to Endurance Fiji, every final 2 had one team who had gotten the samedhi at one point while the other didn't. Prior to Endurance: High Sierras, the team who had gotten a samedhi won.
  • If the team that won the final endurance mission had chosen to remove the samadhi from play, they would not end up at temple the following day. If they did choose to give it to someone, they would end up at temple (albeit, surviving the trip).
  • No Red Team has never given out a samadhi. A Red team did however receive the power of the team switch samadhi from Blue in High Sierras.
  • Two Orange teams had the option to give out a samadhi but didn't: In Endurance 2, Orange choose to remove it from the game while in Fiji, swapped out the samadhi to give a team (Yellow) an automatic temple sentence.
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