Jhana vs. Narrative
For many meditators, including the The Buddha, the concentration practice is something to be developed throughout a lifetime. The mind is constructed to be conditioned by rewards and punishments. By the time a person hits adulthood and has some freedom, they realize that their freedom is not really complete. Past rewards and punishments condition repetition for people that send them towards familiar stresses. Many people are inhibited because everything they desire gets taken away at some point. There are also many others who are or were in toxic relationships where the abusing partner must denigrate them to regulate their own self-esteem. Conventionally, people need external confirmation of their skill, talent and beauty to allow their brain to rate themselves more highly, and to feel better. In toxic relationships self-esteem is not allowed for victims, and their quality of life suffers.
For another person, they may have had many good things in their lives and no real threat to their success, but with age there are natural threats of sickness and death. As people get older they wonder what it was all about. All that success made them emotionally unprepared for loss. All of us need the skill of letting go, but is this even possible? Many people start a practice, and even gain some benefits, but they look at their habits and see that they haven’t changed that much at all. The mind is sly and is excellent at resisting any self-discipline. It’s normal for meditators to start a practice and then they quickly return to food, alcohol, sex, drugs, and entertainment. Thanissaro Bhikkhu warns practitioners of Freud’s Pleasure Principle, in that if you repress it, it moves into the background and returns again and again. The practice has to be a form of pleasure replacement to be salutary.
Most of the teachers I’ll be quoting warn students that we have to “expect the waves” and rebellion. Many people jump to insight practices to try and skip-to-the-end of the spiritual path and disenchant themselves in a very dry practice with little to no pleasure. For most, it backfires with strong rebellion. The narratives take over and people just do whatever they want in the moment and enjoy the delicious sense of freedom and relief from discipline. Even the study of Buddhism and collection of knowledge adds to addictive narratives. For example, measuring oneself on the path is just as distracting as any other activity of self-measurement. Martin Heidegger in his Discourse on Thinking, writes a great example of this. The teacher of the practice in his book was constantly questioned by his students to such a level that the questioning, is seen to be the obstacle of happiness. Yet the Thinking that Heidegger was talking about involved experiences in presence that are hard to put into words. Words can crowd out what’s actually happening, returning the questioner back to the same narrative brain that is so full of conditioned expectations and habits. The conceptual mind keeps running in circles and the quality of experience remains the same. Concepts, thinking and fashioning in the mind is what Heidegger called Re-presenting. “Teacher: Because a word does not and never can re-present anything; but signifies something, that is, shows something as abiding into the range of its expressibility.” Every so often an intellectual discussion leads to a need for rest. “Scholar: But that means, the conversation brings us to that path which seems nothing else than releasement itself. Teacher:…which is something like rest.”
David Bowie – Always crashing in the same car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nwmwy21rAY
David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNqo0kIR-TU
U2 – Running to Stand Still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-RsogWt6wg
Suffering is an addiction – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2019/191113_Suffering_Is_an_Addiction.mp3
Discourse on Thinking – Martin Heidegger: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780061314599/
The Pleasure Principle – Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gurqv-the-pleasure-principle-sigmund-freud.html
Dealing with Subconscious Sabotage – Eckhart Tolle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXDaxBfAaxA
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ~ Albert Camus
This discursive mind can be detected more simply as a sense of separation. There are feelings that accompany the thoughts. The Christian Non-dualist John Butler helps us to locate what was happening all the time. “You can’t really stop, control or get rid of the active mind anymore than you can stop or control or get rid of the ego, just like that. It’s just not real. What you learn to gradually do is simply divert your attention to something other, and then of course it diminishes automatically…Always I come back to this present here…That’s really my answer to all comments and questions that immediately seem to require an answer…Come into this third point that includes you and me. The stillness. The invisible presence in which this conversation takes place, which is really the unquestionable context in which questions take place. This is the peace of it. The completeness of what our incompleteness produces in the form of questions. For those who come to rest in this presence find that the answer to every question is that there is no question. The question itself is dissolved in the unquestionable presence. The situation is complete. Who is it that asks these questions? Of course the bit that’s separate. The bit that isn’t present.”
“What’s in it for me? – John Butler – 15:28: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfwVUggdyBE
That’s the challenge. The thought stream will keep throwing up intentions and one has to filter them, even when they move quickly. As John said, the active mind can’t be stopped. It will keep returning and insights won’t be enough. Habitual narratives will return and co-opt the practice itself. There will always be a need to return to a present moment object to reorient and change directions. There will be a need for powerful concentration to move further on the path. The concentration practice is a momentum practice where hindrances are constantly fought with at the beginning of a sitting, before a Samadhi flow-state can arise. So many things can distract a person’s practice in the meantime. Of course, before starting a practice like this, removing a lot of toxic people from your life, going to psychotherapy, and finding jobs that don’t damage your conscience, will be needed to help quiet the mind. This is already a big practice in of itself. Not having to think about negative people who are out of your life, to allow repressed emotions to be released, can create some deep and needed relief independent of meditation. In Cognitive Therapy, the letting go of thinking patterns of how we and other people should be that are painfully unrealistic, learning to believe that one is worthy of self-regard and self-improvement, and to know that one has to eventually let go of authority figures and rely on oneself, can be a great first step, and for some people that will be enough. Our narratives can have hair-pin turns that move in a better direction and it can include conventional forms of happiness. For example, the world does produce a large amount of pleasure in products and services, many countries have social programs that prevent one from starvation, and many countries also have painkilling medications for dealing with physical pain and illness. It’s not completely irrational to include much of those things in your life which can be enjoyed for a good portion of it. For others who want to continue the meditation practice, all these modalities are a foundation of clarity and presence so that the insight practice can move further. No amount of psychotherapy, healing childhood wounds, enjoyable relationships, and setting up enough wealth in your life will satisfy that sense of separation and emptiness that keeps returning.
Pete Walker – Treating CPTSD: http://www.pete-walker.com/
Even if you achieve great fame and success, like our celebrities do, there’s always a danger of resentment from others, and success can always be followed by failure. A famous actor can get old, washed up and forgotten. A distant win in sports and trophies of a past success can fade in collective memory. Then there are the haters who will never give you recognition. For a modern day example, Robert Pattinson on the Howard Stern Show described all the dangers of his success: “You get all the crazies and you can’t do anything.” Howard then guesses at the baiting and bashing technique that stars can get caught in, when for example “you can’t just go to some restaurant and pick up a girl. You can get into all kinds of legal problems.” Famous people end up isolated. Robert was even criticized by who he accurately calls “professional trolls” who didn’t like his choice of partner because of her race. Of course the questions for those trolls should be like “how does this matter for your life?” and, “are any of these resenters models for us to imitate? If they are so perfect, why don’t they become lifestyle gurus and teach us their wisdom?” Ricky Gervais in his 60 Minutes Australia interview looked at people who criticized him by reminding himself that they probably “live in a bin.” There’s even an insight to this narrative “I” that worries about “living in a bin” versus joining an upper class. The painful envy of exclusion leads to stampeding efforts to change circumstances, that most people will never overcome. Like in the classic dystopian class structure criticism in West End Girls by The Pet Shop Boys, the background singer asks “How much do you need? How far have you been?” The mind is constantly thinking of how to increase status in order to be accepted by others, leading to resentment when the attempts fail.
West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3j2NYZ8FKs
Resenting is a short-term method by people to find a way to feel better about themselves for whatever lack of success they couldn’t get in their lives. How this factors into Jhana and Buddhist practice, or any other spiritual practice, is that you are developing a pleasure that is readily available so there’s less to envy. It doesn’t generate as much envy as other activities do because so many people find meditation boring and unglamourous. This boredom for skilled practitioners is actually peace. Another benefit is that if people copy you and develop the practice, it doesn’t take your “spot” or pleasure in life, so you also don’t have any jealousy, because in the end you have to live with your practice, and the imitator has to live with their practice, and then both have nothing to fight over. The practice is not a “spot” to compete for, even though many people argue over religious dogma. The actual practice, when it’s done well, relaxes those competitive narratives, and people disentangle and get on with their lives. One has to return to cause and effect again and again to get real results.
How to deal with abusive situations – Rupert Spira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOhRqtCXYmM
Because Buddhism looks at development as cause and effect instead of something inherent in the person, it leads to that debate of determinism and choice. Thanissaro Bhikkhu talks about this in his talk “Going in light.” People can be born in light and stay in light. Some come in light and go in darkness. Best of all, some come in darkness and go in light. Worst of all are those who come in darkness and stay in darkness. Buddhism doesn’t go into genetics of course, and would prefer people to practice and see for themselves. There may be groups of people who cannot benefit from the practice because their brains literally are incapable of that kind of concentration. An extreme example comes from J. Reid Meloy in The Psychopathic Mind who talks of a patient who was like a “walking impulse” and had to be indefinitely restrained. Could someone like that benefit from meditation? It doesn’t seem likely. Though, there could be many others who start in darkness, like a person landed in prison, but maybe their brain is capable of meditation. Science doesn’t always know who can or who can’t, so it’s better to try and find out. Whether you call it Flow by Csikszentmihalyi, or Jhanas, when the mind is completely engaged with its object it literally becomes light, bright and happy. When the self-narratives reassert themselves, consciousness literally becomes a burden and darkens. This is the scientific evidence a person needs for understand going in light vs. going in darkness. The therapeutic thing about it, is that one doesn’t have to go into narratives about whether one is a permanently good person or bad person, they just have to develop concentration and brighten the mind and develop skills to stay there. As meditation has been introduced into prisons, people who are capable of the practice are able to find some form of redemption. It’s a way of letting go of judgmental thinking, defensiveness and narrative posturing by replacing it with meditation, sensation and results. The answer to any doubt that arises about one’s value is more meditation, sensation and results.
Boys Latin – Panda Bear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMexarlJu6k
Robert Pattinson Talks the Effect of Fame on Relationships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vct9CyAp4LE
Ricky Gervais – 60 Minutes Australia 10:44: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfgw79mfgIg
5 Types of People who can ruin your life – Bill Eddy: https://amzn.to/322MuU6
Madonna – Drowned World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rsdGjNWiIw
The ‘Wolfman’ Part 3: https://rumble.com/v1gulsf-case-studies-the-wolfman-33-freud-and-beyond.html
Freud – Love: https://rumble.com/v1gv5pd-love-freud-and-beyond.html
Go in light – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/shorttalks/y2019/191229(short)_Go_in_Light.mp3
The only way out is in: Dhamma Brothers – Jenny Phillips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=150cqgYh8sQ
Stalking: https://rumble.com/v1gvhk1-stalking-world-narcissistic-abuse-awareness-day.html
The Psychopathic Mind – J. Reid Meloy: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780876683118/
Running Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihayli: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781492535720/
Preparation
A practice that tries to push us from human thinking habits has to constantly steer the mind away from a conceptualized version of the practice as read in books, or blogs like these. Similar experiences of Jhana are related by many people going back hundreds of years, but the words can never replace your personal experience. You will gain insights and knowledge that feel good to attain, but Jhana is not an intellectual insight you figure out, though many amazing insights will arise during the practice, the good result is from cause and effect in your practice, not a clever flash of an insight, or a profound thought. The feeding mind feeds on insights and possibilities, and that feeding will interfere with your practice again and again. Meditators on retreat often talk about how amazing creative ideas arise during meditation, or even difficult problems reveal ingenious solutions, but those thoughts don’t advance the practice. An entire meditation retreat can be filled with insights and no progress, but maybe you have written a book in your mind. It might even be a good thing to have a notebook in early parts of the practice to note down what you don’t want to forget, just so you can continue the practice afterwards. Part of the hindrances are having things in your mind that you don’t want to forget. A stream of consciousness automatic writing practice, like described by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, can be a therapeutic way of dumping ideas.
The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781585421466/
When all is said and done, all meditation practices need some form of preparation to get better results. There are a lot of things to consider when starting a practice. Rob Burbea from Gaia House has quite a few tips gathered from his experiences of teaching students:
- Compulsive scratching for example can be a sign that one is not willing to wait for sensations to fade on their own.
- The body can be too tight with over-squeezing and striving. Relax the body.
- Meditators can also be very judgmental with themselves, especially in the West, and reminding oneself of the purpose of meditation includes having an attitude of kindness towards oneself.
- Many practitioners fear that attachment to Jhana can interfere with their practice, but a reminder that using Jhana to replace external enjoyments would actually be less attachment than regular habits people dwell in.
- Concentration states help people to realize that when they feel well-being, they make better decisions. For example, Rob described a student that found their anger was not as strong when in deep concentration because the conditions to build the anger weren’t there.
- When good emotions arise, they don’t have to be suppressed. Of course they don’t have to go into a narrative either, but concentration practices allow for enjoyment of the body. Meditation doesn’t have to be torture.
- People who are worried that they are not learning Buddhist insights can also see that they may be devaluing the concentration practice. It’s a practice that allows one to see how the mind uses stress to build experience at a basic level all the way up to a strong rumination, for example. When you return to the object of concentration you are also letting go of clinging at a basic level.
- When practitioners follow the instructions and gain benefit, there can also be a window for experimentation to reduce some of the boredom that may arise from routine. Vibrations in the body can be investigated with mindfulness and it’s okay to use the meditation to spread pleasure throughout the body. At the level of the breath the mind can intentionally seek what the breath wants and then give it what it desires in longer or shorter breaths. As the body and mind begin to feel good, an appreciation can grow in that one can be more generous when one feels they’ve had enough.
- Appreciation can then arise for all one’s supports in life which counters depressive tendencies related to a world that is not good enough.
- Conversely, if one sees benefits of the practice, of feeling that there is enough, then others are less subject to one’s swinging moods and demands. That insight removes the argument that meditation is too selfish.
- Meditation can also include a walking practice which can involve mindfulness in nature. When the mind is concentrated on recognizing rustling leaves, for example, and not on negative narratives, relief can be found there as well.
- The practice is allowed to be gradual. A too quick practice can feel like dying as the self-fades. Each Jhana requires a period of getting accustomed to.
- Jhanas make “letting go of what is not helpful much easier. We feel that we have enough, so letting go is not so scary.”
- Cause and effect in practice develops the Jhanas, and more importantly it enhances the value of insight while in Jhana. Insights will have a more powerful impact with Jhana as soil, and grow to change the person’s habits more deeply. Insights with shallow concentration don’t last as long, and can waste years of practice time.
The Art of Concentration – Rob Burbea: https://dharmaseed.org/retreats/1183/
Practicing the Jhanas – Rob Burbea: https://dharmaseed.org/retreats/4496/
What makes Concentration Right – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2019/191121_What_Makes_Concentration_Right.mp3
Emotional Feeding: https://rumble.com/v1gqvl1-emotional-feeding-thanissaro-bhikkhu.html
Get Attached to Jhana – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2019/190201_Get_Attached_to_Jhana.mp3
Jhana: https://rumble.com/v1gqznl-the-jhanas.html
Improving Concentration: https://rumble.com/v1gqxct-improving-concentration.html
Access Concentration
A more pinpoint approach to gaining 1st Jhana comes from Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder. Like Rob, they advise students to start relaxing a lot of their tensions and attitudes that are brought into meditation sessions. That sense of separation carries into the meditation. Reminding oneself that others are also doing the same thing, and those who have succeeded show that you can succeed as well. We all have to expect ups and downs and deep resistances. All these resistances have narratives and the practice can help to develop disinterest in following narratives. Those narratives include any self-criticism about progress with the meditation. The solution is always to go back to the meditation spot and the sensation. Sensation, not narrative. As narratives fade, so does the sense of self. Tina and Stephen also change the object of meditation from the belly to the Anapana spot where the breath is felt under the nose. Instead of following other practices with multiple objects, the breath spot can be prioritized during the day to create more grooves in the mind and strengthen concentration. They feel that deep absorption can’t be developed with a changing object. As the mind returns to the breath, progress is marked not with narratives, but with consistency in staying with the object. They call it a Lantern mode when concentration is shining everywhere. It’s a momentary concentration. As concentration develops towards one direction, one is in access concentration. Then when the concentration narrows to a laser like focus, one is in absorption. Hindrances and opposing states are burned up by absorption. These signs, or a Nimitta, can appear as different kinds of lights, colours and brightness. First it appears, then increases, becomes solid, energized and then attention merges with the Nimitta into the 1st Jhana.
Of course the striving mind will interfere with the practice. It’s to be expected. They instruct students to be consistently aware of the object. It’s an acknowledgement or recognition of the object without going into a big story about it. The perception can recognize what something is, like the sensation of the breath, without huge narratives and comparisons of value. Just return the drifting attention back. Any questions can be answered by returning to the object. If there are interesting lights and sensations, just stay with the object. You get pulled into Jhana. You don’t have to force it to happen. Even when not much happens at the beginning of a practice, the mind is still building a muscle to stay with objects. Each sitting doesn’t have to be an all or nothing venture. Sensing, staying, relaxing and inviting the object drains narratives of energy. It’s a receiving effort, not a striving. The energy needed is just to let go of narratives and to come back to the object. Having faith in the instructions helps to stay with the object as well, instead of flipping from one practice to another without depth of cultivation. One also has to be realistic about how long it takes to develop these practices. Tina and Stephen recommend 3 to 4 hour sits with mastery of the 1st Jhana, where it can be entered at will, as a requirement before moving to the next Jhana. Having long sits reduces the need to strive for quick Jhana attainments. Then the breath can be left on it’s own to breath naturally without constant pushing and racing. Like a guitar string, the concentration is being tuned with the object. The extra time also allows the concentration to spread throughout the body.
Garrison Kathleen, Santoyo Juan, Davis Jake, Thornhill Thomas, Kerr Catherine, Brewer Judson. Effortless awareness: using real time neurofeedback to investigate correlates of posterior cingulate cortex activity in meditators’ self-report. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, (2013),
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00440
Hindrances
The resistances or hindrances will appear in your concentration and be quite forceful. They throw you out of your meditation. These are the real Freudian Slips. It’s not a speaking or typing error. These are old and powerful narratives where the identity is residing, and where all these forces are coming from which is the unconscious. Tina and Stephen use a metaphor of walking backwards on a beach being hit by waves from behind. Some big waves will kick you completely out of your meditation and resume your old habits as if nothing was happening. Habits can force you out of concentration from seemingly nowhere. Strengthening the muscle and returning to the practice is what really makes the long-term development. There are no short-cuts. It’s cultivation and development that trains the unconscious, not the ego trying to fake it out. Only the unconscious that has the power to surprise. This means that serious lapses in your practice and reassertion of old habits will have to be accepted. It’s easy to get discouraged and give up. One has to expect major failures so that when they happen, a narrative of failure doesn’t take over. Only an acceptance that everyone goes through this, and a return to the practice, will get the practitioner back to form.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life – Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gtl55-the-psychopathology-of-everyday-life-sigmund-freud.html
A big part of Tina’s and Stephen’s emphasis on dealing with hindrances, is to admit their reality. Striving is a big obstacle. Striving for Jhanic attainments, like saying “I really want the 5th Jhana,” uses the part of the brain that will prevent it from happening. Ask “why am I striving? Clearly I want something.” Tina and Stephen recommend the goal to be the purification of attachment. Seeing the pain of hindrances can help to disenchant a person from following them. Being completely aware, knowing and acknowledging the hindrances with mindfulness will soften their impact. Seeing them as a passing phenomenon lets go of the need to add narratives to them which just fuel them further. You can just stay with the sensation of the hindrance until it goes away on its own. Bring up the insight of cause and effect and return to the object. Mindfulness can also give some space to apply antidotes when hindrances are really strong. Here are the traditional list of hindrances, plus some methods to move through them:
- Sensual pleasure – Antidote: Focus attention on any realistic drawbacks. Avoiding many sensual pleasures means avoiding their cost or consequence. The mind can choose peace much easier.
- Ill-will – Antidotes: Develop a Metta (friendliness) practice. If friendliness doesn’t work, because you are in a toxic environment, you can develop equanimity towards those who won’t change. Of course if you can remove yourself from the presence of negative people, then do that. Apply legal boundaries to any people if they escalate too much.
- Sloth and torpor – Antidotes: Straightening the posture, opening the eyelids slightly to let light in, walking meditation, and proper sleep. Some people can reduce sleep with meditation, and others can’t. You have to practice and see which person you are.
- Restlessness-worry – Antidotes: Increase virtue and solve problems in the real world. Sometimes taking action is more important than meditation.
- Doubt – Antidote: Find out where you are not following instructions properly and tweak your practice. This strengthens the belief in cause and effect. If you don’t apply the proper causes, you won’t get the proper effect.
As practice develops there will be periods of time when hindrances fall and the 5 factors of Jhana are present. There was an application of attention, followed by a sustaining attention. There is a rapture in attaining and absorbing with the object, and a happiness of enjoying it. This supports a non-wavering one-pointedness towards the breath object. At this point you are with the experience and narratives related to the rapture can wobble the attention and concentration has to be applied again. These factors must be understood well before moving to the next Jhana so that they can be entered in at will and spread throughout the body.
Of course many teachers teach different ways of getting through to the 1st Jhana. For example, Tina and Stephen recommend a narrow and focused attention to reduce distraction, and Thanissaro prefers a full-bodied object to catch interruptions coming from any angle. He wants the attention that constantly wavers to “meld back into consciousness of the body so that they become one and the same thing.” The different angles that teachers point to illuminate the power of perception and the attention span, on how it can focus in one area and ignore another place at the same time. This can be used as a skill when there is pain. The practitioner can accept pain and continue with the breath-object. The bodily pain impinging on consciousness sometimes evaporates. The worst part about concentration is that when you get benefits, and you stop practicing, the narrative-impulses return. This is where hypocrisy comes from. Different parts of the brain have different goals and they conflict. Even advanced practitioners, including stories of the Buddha’s daily life practice, continue with a concentration practice to guard the benefits, no matter how realized they are. You will always find a use for concentration.
Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder talks: https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/262/
The Jhanas: https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratana/wheel351.html
Centered All around – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2020/200118_Centered_All-around.mp3
The Work of Enlightenment – John Butler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uAmZr3zeuQ
Mature Strategies – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2004/040729%20Mature%20Strategies.mp3
1st Jhana – Rapture
“There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters and remains in the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal.
“Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman’s apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again and again with water, so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within and without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk permeates, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal…”
Arahant Upatissa, in The Path of Freedom: Vimuttimagga, describes how the mind eventually inclines into Jhana, which is the way it will continually move through each Jhana successively. It’s dissatisfaction. In the case of access concentration and the 1st Jhana, the pleasure comes from letting go of the hindrances, so the mind appreciates the 1st jhana precisely for that reason. When the hindrances subside, and the initial and sustained application of attention relaxes, the relief provides rapture. The erratic focus in Access Concentration finally stabilizes.
The Path of Freedom: Vimuttimagga – Arahant Upatissa: https://www.urbandharma.org/pdf1/Path_of_Freedom_Vimuttimagga.pdf
Guarding
Once a person finally attains the 1st Jhana a lot of doubt about the practice falls away. It was an actual experience, not just words on a page. Yet as soon as the meditation ends, any over-confidence is deflated. The old habits start to return very quickly. Moving back and forth between concentration and habitual narratives helps the mind to compare and make a choice. Remembering cause and effect and letting go of those narratives leads to more lightness and happiness. And this doesn’t only have to be on the mat with eyes closed. In daily life one can let go of those repetitive narratives that serve no purpose other than to repeat actions. The practitioner can see that even mild narratives in a relatively neutral experience can create a slight tension in the body that isn’t needed. Letting go those energy draining effects begins to lighten your regular mind states. Going back to the breath, even if it’s not a Jhana, can balance consciousness so the mind isn’t as reactive, but it has to be constantly let go of.
Guarding the mind is not just to reduce unnecessary pain, but also staleness of old thinking patterns. It’s can present opportunities to introduce new thoughts and experiences. The present moment is fresh. A good example of this was Daniel J. Siegel’s experience at a meditation retreat in The Mindful Brain. In our daily life the benefits of a meditation sitting can be erased quite quickly. “I went for a long mindful walk in the snow in the forest outside the main building. At one point, I saw this gorgeous vista of a white-blanketed valley framed by a snow-covered limb of a tall pine, icicles dangling down from a nearby boulder. To my surprise I burst into tears at the vivid sights and smells and cool air on my face, the sound of the wind in the trees and the crunching snow beneath my boots. And then, just as quickly, I heard a thought in my head say, ‘You’ll die one day and none of this will be here for you.’ My exhilaration vanished in an instant, leaving me distraught. I felt defeated and deflated. It was as if an ancient war were being waged, magnified in my isolated head between thoughts and sensations…Later, I described this experience….A teacher said that we’d soon learn that anything arising in the mind, from sensations to thoughts, is to be accepted as it comes without judgment.” It’s a big lesson to continue practicing without recrimination for having thoughts flow through the mind. Concentration doesn’t have to be an angry batting away of thinking. This way there’s less aversion to interruptions, which can cause escalated thinking, making it harder to return to the meditation object in the present. Gradually we can relax our need for the present to have perfect conditions for practice. Ajahn Brahm recommends “putting lots of energy into knowing.” The intellectual faculty will constantly operate, and it is needed, but less so in the meditation. It’s required when reflecting on those meditation experiences that are now in memory. Keeping the activities in their respective roles keeps us from overthinking in meditation, and also using the thinking after meditation sessions to help us enhance the practice and to gain insight.
The Mindful Brain by Daniel J. Siegel – https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780393704709/
“Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness…Just as in the last month of the hot season, when all the crops have been gathered into the village, a cowherd would look after his cows: While resting under the shade of a tree or out in the open, he simply keeps himself mindful of ‘those cows.’ In the same way, I simply kept myself mindful of ‘those mental qualities’…Unflagging persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established. My body was calm & unaroused, my mind concentrated & single. Quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities, I entered & remained in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation.”
2nd Jhana – Joy
“Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure. Just like a lake with spring-water welling up from within, having no inflow from east, west, north, or south, and with the skies periodically supplying abundant showers, so that the cool fount of water welling up from within the lake would permeate and pervade, suffuse and fill it with cool waters, there being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool waters; even so, the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure…”
As the development of Jhana continues, and can be entered and exited at will, there will be imperfections with this state that begin to be noticed. The 1st jhana’s vibrating rapture can start to grate on the mind. Leigh Brasington, in Right Concentration, recommends taking a deep breath and slowly letting it all out. Rapture has a coarse quality about it, and for Leigh, this can motivate rapture to move into the background and Joy can now move into the foreground. It’s often described as a smoother experience than rapture. The switch happens when the mind naturally gains interest on the feelings of Joy. Movement from one jhana to the next is a refinement from coarse to fine. Like moving from one home to another that is more comfortable, the mind becomes fickle and is always looking for the next refinement, and loathes returning to more crude abodes. The 2nd jhana is preferred over the 1st, because it is more fine, but also because the 1st jhana is too close to the hindrances.
3rd Jhana – Contentment
“And furthermore, with the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, ‘Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.’ He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with pleasure divested of rapture. Just as in a blue-, white-, or red-lotus pond, there may be some of the blue, white, or red lotuses which, born and growing in the water, stay immersed in the water and flourish without standing up out of the water, so that they are permeated and pervaded, suffused and filled with cool water from their roots to their tips, and nothing of those blue, white, or red lotuses would be unpervaded with cool water; even so, the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with pleasure divested of rapture…”
Underneath all the rapture and joy, there’s a gladness that is less agitating, that Leigh calls contentment. Again he’s supportive of taking a deep breath and letting it all out. He compares the contentment to eating a perfect meal where one refrained from overeating. In many Dharma communities, memories can be used, just like the Buddha did, to remind the brain of different kinds of contentment that were enjoyed in the past. Here you are content, but there’s no sense of movement. There is also a dissatisfaction with going back to the 2nd jhana which is too close to the activities needed to gain the 1st jhana: sustained and applied attention.
4th Jhana – Equanimity
“And furthermore, with the abandoning of pleasure and stress — as with the earlier disappearance of elation and distress — he enters and remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither-pleasure-nor-pain. He sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness. Just as if a man were sitting wrapped from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; even so, the monk sits, permeating his body with a pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness.”
Underneath contentment is a sense of equanimity. That part of the mind lets go of contentment to a purifying state without pleasure or stress. This can happen naturally as if the mind gets tired of contentment and Leigh advises to just let it drop, like dropping a smile. It’s not to go into negativity, but into equanimity. You are dropping the burden of trying to maintain contentment. The near enemy of the 3rd jhana is the burden of maintaining preferences for joy against displeasure. In Buddhism, the 4th Jhana is considered a clear enough mind to develop the insight practice fully, but there are those who develop further to expand beyond the confines of the sensation of the body. Solidity, liquidity, heat and cold is the purveyance of the material jhanas. The next 4 jhanas are subtle immaterial jhanas where the boundaries of sensation are tested.
5th Jhana – Boundless Space
“Further, Ananda, the monk — not attending to the perception of wilderness, not attending to the perception of earth — attends to the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in its perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space. He discerns that ‘Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of wilderness are not present. Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of earth are not present. There is only this modicum of disturbance: the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space.’ He discerns that ‘This mode of perception is empty of the perception of wilderness. This mode of perception is empty of the perception of earth. There is only this non-emptiness: the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space.’ Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there. Whatever remains, he discerns as present: ‘There is this.’ And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, & pure.”
Jumping from the material to immaterial jhanas is a difficult move for most meditators. A person at this point must be meditating as their hobby in the lay world so they can put in enough hours to master these absorption states. To move through the jhanic arc, practitioners have to keep returning to lower levels, including the 1st jhana and start again to deal with their wobbly concentration. The reason these jhanas are called immaterial is because now the practitioner is starting to challenge the barriers of the sensation of the body, and according to the “Abhidhamma, [they] are considered modes of the fourth jhana.” Here Leigh takes from Ayya Khema in which she translates “wilderness” as “diversity.” One must let go of the diversity of perception and notice the boundaries of space and let them expand until consciousness zooms out of “diversity” into infinite space. Daniel Ingram asks a question that brings in the interest that is connected with exploration. “How big is reality?” Henepola Gunaratana, in The Jhanas, describes it as directing “applied and sustained thought” to the space of your meditative experience. Pak Au Sayadaw describes the escape from the material jhanas with imagery like that of a space out of a window. The window and home are the sensation of the body and escaping the structure to the outside is motivated by the danger of the 4th jhana and how the body is vulnerable to so many misfortunes. The near enemy of the 5th jhana is the materiality of the 4th jhana, and the 3rd jhana with the burden, concern and effort to protect joy from events that cause displeasure in materiality.
For Rob Burbea, stress is a reminder that we are conditioned to be interested in the objects in space, but we neglect the inverse. Even with just a basic body scan, and with enough sensitivity, you can detect vibrations signifying the solidity of the body. This can also be a fun practice if there are aches and pains. To detect the ache, and notice the vibrations in it, tends to deescalate the pain, and it often disappears. Being in the 4th jhana makes it easier to notice this lack of solidity, and one can enjoy the pleasure which helps the mind move into Boundless Space, or an absence of resistance. A sense of edgelessness moves in and out of the perception of space throughout this experience and dissolves on its own. Letting material perceptions vanish avoids the effort of having to stretch images in the mind. Visual images are helpful but the feeling sense of the body must be included. “What one is doing is staying focused on the space, the total absence of solidity or resistance, and not really attending to anything else that comes up in the mind, or anything else that one might perceive. The non-attention to perceptions of diversity…Keeping with the sense of space allows the expansion.” Rob in particular recommends practicing this with the eyes open, including sky-watching, and finds it just as potent as with the eyes closed. As the mind develops further in the jhana the perception becomes more like floating where there is nothing obstructing the way. “The mind and body become one with boundless space…being-space…immersion in infinity.” The results are “exhilaration, wonder, awe, a cosmic oneness, and an unconditional love..[that can more easily be unconditional when preferences for diversity are not active.]” It’s a release from the sense of materiality, and all the preferences, aches and the pains of it. “There are prisons that we don’t realize are prisons until we are released from them.” This means that love, compassion, and metta can extend into higher jhanas, not only up to the 4th jhana as the Visuddhimagga states. Rob also likes to include insight “ways of looking” to find a more direct way to each jhana, as influenced by his studies of The ways to the inperturbable sutta. By developing an aloofness towards materiality, results begin more quickly. “It’s all just materiality. It’s all just the 4 elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and water…Any sense of any sense object, it’s just materiality.” Of course this cannot be done by rote, it has to mean something to the practitioner. Materiality has to be seen to have impermanence, stress when concerned narratives yearn for a preference, and a lack of ownership because of impermanence and stress. You begin to lose interest in materiality and move into the 5th jhana.
Stratosphere – Beck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFknA30AbFM
Henapola Gunaratana: https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratana/wheel351.html#ch4
Conducive to the Inperturbable: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.106.than.html
6th Jhana – Boundless Consciousness
“Further, Ananda, the monk — not attending to the perception of earth, not attending to the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space — attends to the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in its perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. He discerns that ‘Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of earth are not present. Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space are not present. There is only this modicum of disturbance: the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness.’ He discerns that ‘This mode of perception is empty of the perception of earth. This mode of perception is empty of the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space. There is only this non-emptiness: the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness.’ Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there. Whatever remains, he discerns as present: ‘There is this.’ And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, & pure.”
Because a boundless space is known by the meditator’s consciousness, then the move to the this jhana is to be aware of the awareness. Leigh says that “the observer and the observed are the same…” Henepola continues viewing the prior state of space being made up of some form and therefore slightly gross and less peaceful. Daniel more directly looks at Jhanas that are mastered as something that is “still thought created” with a subtle sense of duality, and a sense of boredom can still arise. There is also the near enemy going back into the form of the body and it’s vulnerability. The mind moves to a boundless consciousness without the perception of space. Just by observing space and realizing that it’s all pervaded by knowing, then the mind can just relax in knowing, collapsing the distance of the spatial object. For Ajahn Brahm, space loses its meaning. Daniel wryly adds further detail and another way to see how the meaning of space changed into a meaning for consciousness. “…Consciousness seems to fill the whole universe, though really it just fills the field of experience…a diffuse presence that seems to be part of space itself rather than centralized on this side.”
Rob Burbea describes the 6th jhana as being different because “usually…there’s much more attention to what were conscious of. To some subtle degree, within any moment of consciousness, is some small degree of a sense that, ‘there is consciousness right now’ and it goes with a subject, ‘I am conscious.’ That subtle portion…can be amplified. How do things get amplified? 1st they need to be noticed, then they need to be attuned to, and that attuning to what we notice amplifies it. In the mix of what consciousness is in any moment, by noticing this sense of being consciousness, this awareness of awareness, amplifies that sense within consciousness…Eventually all the attention, all the consciousness, is the consciousness of consciousness…All the objects get filtered out of it and it becomes an infinitely expansive consciousness.” The after effect for Rob is that if a student begins to experience the 6th jhana, they would probably think that “life knowing that realm is so much richer, than life not knowing that realm.”
Rob provides a few options for practitioners who want to move further. “Just hanging out in the previous jhana, it naturally matures. A 2nd possibility is to be in the realm of infinite space, when you’ve got some mastery, then begin becoming aware of the awareness in that state. 3rd possibility is noticing a steady object of the senses, and tuning into and focusing on that sense of knowing, that sense of consciousness. So in other words, this realm of infinite consciousness, can be approached, not only from the 5th jhana, but it can be approached from normal consciousness. It’s a matter of noticing, tuning and then amplifying that very sense of consciousness.” Rob then adds some more approaches, including using the sense of the body in the 4th jhana and moving into the knowing of that. Like with the 5th jhana, there is an insight way of approach where the boundless space is treated with equanimity. It’s just “space” until a natural disenchantment leads to the 6th jhana. Finally, for those who have done this repeatedly, just the memory of the 6th jhana can start to bring it up. As in the 5th jhana, there’s no need to strive to make anything expand. It just expands on its own with the repeated attunement.
7th Jhana – No-thingness
“Further, Ananda, the monk — not attending to the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space, not attending to the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness — attends to the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of nothingness. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in its perception of the dimension of nothingness. He discerns that ‘Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space are not present. Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness are not present. There is only this modicum of disturbance: the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of nothingness.’ He discerns that ‘This mode of perception is empty of the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space. This mode of perception is empty of the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. There is only this non-emptiness: the singleness based on the perception of the dimension of nothingness.’ Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there. Whatever remains, he discerns as present: ‘There is this.’ And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, & pure.”
Leigh emphasizes the 7th Jhana as No-thingness. Like with the sense of space in the 5th jhana, where there’s no-thing in the space, space is now faded out of the picture and it’s a sense of no-thing. There’s just a sense of an observer “suspended in nothing.” This happens by putting attention in areas of nothing until there is no area, just nothing. Some students described the experience to Leigh as like “black static” on a TV channel with no station. Henepola again looks at where there is a slight burden and where there might be more peace. Boundless space and the boundless consciousness connected with it are a positive, and inclining towards voidness as a negative of these experiences, the practitioner finds no-thingness as more restful. Daniel focuses more on the natural boredom that arises when a Jhana is mastered. “…Allow disenchantment to naturally and organically arise in relation to Boundless Consciousness. Eventually the mind will let go of the sixth jhana and shift to the jhana of Nothingness. This state can be described as like space with all the lights completely out, so that there is no vastness, and almost no sensations other than those of Nothingness.” Further motivation is the danger of slipping back into Boundless Consciousness which has the near enemy of the crudeness of Boundless Space. Here there is just a perception of no-thing. This is because when examining the content of consciousness, no concrete thing is found, leading to voidness. These are also insights that the brain is taking in detail from the world but it builds thicker shapes and forms for our normal awake consciousness, and clings to these structures with worry and concern. If there are no things to cling to, there are no worries. Ajahn Brahm says that all one is left with is “one-pointedness of nothing,” or no-thing. Most instructors talk of how scary the jhana is when first encountered. Daniel describes how “Nothingness initially can be a bit scary for the same reasons that being in a dark room can be scary, at least until we get used to it.” Of course, there are still some refined worries and practitioners can move to the next jhana. “It may seem incredible that the sensations of Nothingness itself could be observed to arise and pass, that is, strobe in and out of reality, or that they could be known to neither satisfy nor be self or the property of the self…We tend to like a place to stand, some ‘this side’ to stay stable.” This is a deep insight about that need for a “spot” that people have. It happens even in meditation, and even when there’s a spot experiencing nothing.
Rob translations of Buddha’s views of perception, is that perception is not peaceful enough. All the 6 jhanas are perceptions, and meditating on how they are not ultimately peaceful helps to bring up the 7th jhana. A 2nd way is to contemplate the rigidity of concepts and how they treat these prior states as permanent, when in fact they take a lot of commitment to develop. Even this higher self of just being aware of phenomena is insecure. There is no experience that stands alone without interdependence to other phenomena, or in other words, no experience owns itself, because it’s not permanently lasting, and so there is stress there. This includes a sense of self that is independent. You don’t even belong to yourself because your phenomenological experience is under-girded by impermanence. Even in this state of nothingness there is a very subtle “subject and object separation. We cannot totally erase or collapse the subject-object duality without much deeper insight ways of looking.” An insight way of looking for Rob is to start from consciousness and to look at everything you sense as just perceptions. When you scan all your senses, including your kinisthetic sense, it starts to bring in the knowledge of how our experience is built up in the mind, and it recreates a reality for us to conceptually navigate in. All perceptions are created or fabricated, and of course, they are not ultimately peaceful.
Freud – Love “My Spot”: https://rumble.com/v1gv5pd-love-freud-and-beyond.html
8th Jhana – Neither Perception nor Non-Perception
“Further, Ananda, the monk — not attending to the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, not attending to the perception of the dimension of nothingness — attends to the singleness based on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. He discerns that ‘Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness are not present. Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of the dimension of nothingness are not present. There is only this modicum of disturbance: the singleness based on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.’ He discerns that ‘This mode of perception is empty of the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. This mode of perception is empty of the perception of the dimension of nothingness. There is only this non-emptiness: the singleness based on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.’ Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there. Whatever remains, he discerns as present: ‘There is this.’ And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, & pure.”
At this attainment Tina and Stephen view this as non-duality and thinning of the self. It’s difficult to describe because perception requires labeling and recognition. Even no-thingness is a recognition. In this state one neither labels but is also not denying there is an experience. It’s an experience without labels, including the painful self-label. Henapola follows the pain to notice that perception itself is a burden, even a perception of nothingness. The mind drops the recognition aspect of perception preferring a more subtle non-labeling perception and the concerned feelings associated with them. All the prior jhanas are a form of perception that divide experience. Here, one-ness has been attained. Daniel rests the idea that one needs to “do something” in order to attain the 8th Jhana. “…Hang out in Nothingness until [you] get bored with perception entirely and understand that even the profoundly subtle perception that is Nothingness is subtly disconcerting or dissatisfying.” Everyone struggles with descriptions of something that is neither a perception, nor not a perception. Daniel attempts to describe it as a both narrow and broad focus at the same time, which demolishes adjectives that would prefer that it is narrow or broad, but not at the same time. “This state is contrasted with the first seven jhanas in that it is not possible to investigate this state, because it is too incomprehensible.”
Rob Burbea also found it hard to describe, but of course he attempts it. He describes it as the mind struck by the indecision to hook onto or land on perception or nothing. Yet, the 8th jhana still has a sense of time, a “this moment” compared to Nirvana, which is timeless. To get to the 8th jhana requires a tuning that goes beyond perceptions and non-perceptions. It is sensed as more refined. This is done by extending the insight that perceptions are not peaceful, but so are perceptions of nothing. Then the mind doesn’t want to land on either.
Both Daniel Ingram and Kenneth Folk explore other jhanas and advanced combinations, but I’ll leave links below to those who want to explore further:
Guided Tour to 13 Jhanas – Kenneth Folk and Nick Halay: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwrLAnm2lA-0KZDAvJt4am2jrRg7hzz5U
How to attain Nirodha Samapatti – Daniel Ingram: https://vimeo.com/248566139
Oneness insights
“Why should I seek more? I am the same as he. His essence speaks through me. I have been looking for myself?” ~ Rumi
After developing all these Jhanas, how does one take these experiences into the world? Rupert Spira is one of the best Advaita guides in the English language, and he views the felt sense of separation is due to a lack of exploration of duality, like just explored above. All eight of these Jhanas collapse into an indistinct experience of awareness. This awareness for Rupert is something to cultivate, instead of our normal resting in psychological processing of concepts. Conceptual processing is tiring and stressful. Resting in knowing is preferable. One of the benefits of Oneness is being able to compare it to the conditioned “I” that likes to measure the environment, and never fails to find it wanting. Resting in awareness allows the mind to surf on sensing experience, including the sense of reactivity related to concepts and perceptions. When the mind doesn’t follow or elaborate on the “I” narrative, it has the choice to follow sensation and relief instead. It can be like a clicker cricket where one mode is maintaining relaxed consistency in present moment awareness, which is a relief, and then click-click you lose your concentration and you’re back to the habitual narrative “I”. It operates automatically without the effort. As the practice develops over the years resting in awareness becomes the new habit.
For the sake of skill – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2020/200203_For_the_Sake_of_the_Skill.mp3
The world does not exist without the body, the body never exists without the mind, the mind never exists without consciousness, and consciousness never exists without reality ~ Ramana Maharshi
Like Martin Heidegger, Rupert worries about our scientific materialistic sense of the world. These fixed ideas can have fixed stresses connected to them. Yet science, for all it’s value, can’t ever really know absolute reality. Rupert wants us to identify with experience, instead of conceptual thinking. Not only does the sense of separation reduce, when one relaxes conceptual processing, but there’s less reactivity because there’s no need to defend the conceptual “I.” Concepts manifest from awareness, but no thoughts are independently aware. “….All knowledge and experience, is itself an appearance within consciousness…” Believing in an independent conceptual knower is “…tantamount to believing that an email creates the screen upon which it appears or, even worse, that the email exists in its own right, independent of the screen, whose very existence is denied.” Meister Eckhart already said “no idea represents or signifies itself. It always points to something else, of which it is a symbol. And since man has no ideas, except those abstracted from external things through the sense, he cannot be blessed by an idea.”
How developing the jhanas can help with insight is that all our searches for a self are simply storytelling activities and the detrimental emotional impact that they have. Searching for the “I” in sensation yields relief because the narratives are operating less or not at all. Even the search for consciousness has a drain on energy because “…awareness itself is the experiencing in all experience.” How we get lost is when “…we separate out the experience from what we are aware of.” For example, in the 5th jhana the boundaries of our experience are challenged. “The body is simply a sensation of the body and the world is simply the perception of the world.” As we see through sensation and perception, all that is left is a one-ness perception. Consciousness permeates a distant object just as much as the felt sense of the body. Meister Eckhart tried to bridge that distance between God and man. “The course of heaven is outside time–and yet time comes from its movements. Nothing hinders the soul’s knowledge of God as much as time and space, for time and space are fragments, whereas God is one! And therefore, if the soul is to know God, it must know him above time and outside of space; for God is neither this nor that, as are these manifold things. God is one!”
Meister Eckhart – A Modern Translation – Raymond Bernard Blakney: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780766133532/
Yet we still live in dualistic perceptions and have to in order to survive. How these insights can help is to expand consciousness to all experiences, and when we take care of whatever is experienced in consciousness, we take of others and ourselves at the same time. Instead of feeling like a commanded slave, we are taking care of our surroundings for our own sake. Self-interest and altruism are connected at a higher perception. For example, if you clean your house, you may be motivated by what people may think if you don’t. A healthier motivation is to clean the house because your consciousness becomes cleaner at the same time and you’re motivated by results, not social threats. At the same time, when you clean your home for your enjoyment, others can enjoy it as well.
On the screen you sometimes see a huge ocean with endless waves; that disappears. Another time, you see fire spreading all around; that too disappears. Did the screen get wet with the water or did it get burned by the fire? Nothing affected the screen ~ Ramana Maharshi
As you identify with consciousness, instead of narratives, your stress will decrease. A lot of the questioning we do, including those related to spiritual quests, also decreases. Many questions are neurotic because questions can’t get behind awareness. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail. Of course for many the search will continue because the experience of unfind-ability of a separate anything, isn’t complete. The search has to sweep all of experience and not find a separate awareness. Rupert calls it a “zero-dimensional awareness.” Meditation is a life-long practice because Jhana practices and their depth of knowing take a lot of time to develop. First we let go of the “I” concept, then the “I” body/space sensation. Like Heidegger, Spira asks us to know that “the thought ‘I am’ is not what I am. It is a symbol of what I am in the mind. It is like an image of the screen on the screen… In order to say ‘I am’ we must know I am. In other words, the thought ‘I am’ comes from the experience I am. Take the thought ‘I am’ to the experience ‘I am’, that is to the knowing of our own being, and the subsequent abiding in and as that being, [which] is the highest form of meditation…The ‘I’ that is longing, is the I that is longed for…There is no distance from ourself to ourself. Therefore there can be no room for any effort for this practice, in this non-practice. Any apparent movement would be an effort from ourself away from ourself, towards something other than ourself.” The efforting and imagining of the separate “I”, which goes to the future or the past, is what veils present moment experience. Only more relaxing of effort, waiting, and allowing the breath to be as it is will make the brain feel at home.
Existence is the same as happiness and happiness is the same as being. The word Mukti is so provoking. Why should one seek it? One believes that there is bondage and therefore seeks liberation. But the fact is that there is no bondage but only liberation. Why call it by a name and seek it? ~ Ramana Maharshi
Of course there are cravings, but the mind adds efforting on top of them. The brain is used to adding setups of tension and payoffs of release, and the conventional way to do that is to make sure the setups are doable before attempting any emotional investment, or else a lack of payoffs leads to more stress. Activities that you have skill for are actually refreshing and motivate you, and should be pursued when they make sense. Unconventional happiness is available to instead relax the setups as far as possible. A de-escalation. All of our setups are habitual and in the nature of awareness itself. Meditation achievements can even follow this pattern, when it is treated as setups at the beginning of the meditation requiring payoffs. The real path of meditation is to see how far those solidities and tensions can relax. A lot of our setups have never had payoffs and have been looking for them for years. You watch and wait for the habitual setups that desire payoffs to relax on their own. A weaning practice. Letting go of resentments, emotional blocks, and traumas. Think of it this way. If you are able to relax the tensions you feel, then there’s no tension needing a payoff. The key is to relax long enough so that the feelings going outwards enjoy staying inward. Concepts are always aiming outward, and even concepts about the inside are still outside in their feelings of separation. Basically the longer it takes you to get satisfied by the meditation, the more work you have to do. Like many other meditation teachers, Rupert feels that a couple of hours of this practice per day would eliminate most so called “problems” people feel they have. World peace can only be achieved by individuals finding peace inside themselves. Of course these practices are overlooked by those who don’t practice and even by those who do, because they practice by using too much effort. Here I disagree a little with Rupert in that we know of many Cluster B personality disorders who will never do these practices and may not be able to even if they were trained. They will purposefully trigger tension that needs release in revenge and 2 hours of meditation will probably not be enough. The environment still has to be changed. People have to stay long enough in the meditation so that the hindrances are defeated. Then the perception of satisfaction changes.
“I” is the Source of our Longing – Rupert Spira: https://youtu.be/zp7EdZg-wI4
Sublimation – Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gv2fr-sublimation-sigmund-freud.html
Flow in 7 Steps – Csikszentmihalyi: https://rumble.com/v1gvked-how-to-gain-flow-in-7-steps.html
Now Rupert does sit in a hot seat, and tries to use his practice to maintain his patience with resistant audience members. Some retreatants come up to him and suffer long-standing depression and the narrative “I” can be extremely powerful and flood awareness completely. Rupert in Advaita “beast-mode” doesn’t back down when awareness is clouded. Where most people, including psychologists, throw up their hands, get irritated, or lash back with counter-transference at tedious depressed people, Rupert moves like a surgeon dealing with a difficult case. “Say to yourself ‘I am aware of my depression.’ You are obviously aware of your depression otherwise you wouldn’t know you are depressed.” The questioning mind under depression is extremely powerful, and wants a payoff for it’s large setup of stress. In some situations there may be biological reasons for it, and with meditation, it’s a try and see method. We don’t know the medical histories of retreatants in these talks and videos, for obvious reasons of privacy, but in some cases medication may be needed. In these retreat environments retreatants go with their own desire to develop insight to find relief. In many cases, it’s just an early experience with awareness that retreatants have to develop after their consultation. With one retreatant, for example, Rupert goes back to the exploration of awareness as an answer to her powerful depressive narratives. “As you rightly say, going into some intellectual non-dual line of thinking doesn’t touch the depression. It just sits like a superficial veneer on top of it.” The mind is still interested in the reality of the depressive stories and feelings. “Cease being interested in this little contraction…Become interested in what is really there in experience, which is this totally open unlimited experience of being aware.” Like with Rob Burbea, Rupert knows that exploration of the reality of awareness requires repeated exposure, whether through pointing instructions or from Jhanic practices, the shift from a habit of staying in narrative, and a habit to rest in awareness requires a lot of interest, pleasure, sacredness and repetition to make more long lasting changes. Awareness has to be more interesting than “I” narratives. “Lose interest in this contraction and this depression, not by trying to get rid of them, but because something more interesting has grabbed your attention…All you know is the knowing of your experience…It runs constant throughout all experience. It’s not the property of any particular experience. Although it runs through all experiences, it is not limited by any particular experience. Be interested in that. What is that? What is the knowing, with which I know my experience? What could be more interesting than that? Fall in love with that. These tensions, these depressions, these contractions, they will just die of neglect. They won’t disappear because we tried to meditate them away for 30 years or discipline them, or made any effort towards them. No. It’s the opposite. They disappear like our problems disappear when we fall in love. When we fall in love…we are interested in something so much more interesting, so much more lovable, that all these things they just slowly, fade. And maybe 6 months later you look back and you think, ‘what happened to that depression? I didn’t notice that it went away. I just lost interest in it, and it just seemed to leave me. We don’t see [it] disappear, we just become interested in something so much more interesting and lovable.”
Become interested in the experience of being aware – Rupert Spira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9qBsdL21Rs
How to live with oneness
Now a lot of the juicy passion and interest in our lives comes from measurement, categorization, and mystery. Many of us still want to continue these activities, as long as they are a net benefit. This is why Rupert advises against meditative striving, when people want to rush to the end as soon as possible. “Only do these loving contemplations of your experience when that seems to you the most interesting and enjoyable thing you could possibly be doing at that moment.” Contemplation has to be inviting, and that happens naturally when there’s a curiosity to learn about your phenomenology. Isn’t that sense of wonder sparked when you embark on a journey of exploration? Contemplating experience should have an aliveness compared to ruminating about abstract, dead self-concepts. Now of course, learning new concepts can be refreshing and provide new patterns to filter our experience and to predict events. “If you find something more interesting then do that…like going to the cinema. Do whatever is the most enjoyable, most interesting thing. Spiritual life should be just like going to the best party you can imagine. It should be the most enjoyable, the most interesting thing to do. To make a practice out of it, to make a discipline out of it is blasphemous. Just do it when you feel, ‘this is what I love to do.’ Don’t do it as a practice when you’re suffering to get rid of suffering. To do it for a reason. Just do it because it is the most interesting thing to do for its own sake. Just for the joy of discovery. It’s not for any reason.” It’s an important point. Striving interferes with the practice right at the beginning, and to begin a meditation out of interest will be more sustainable than treating it like a drudgery. Also, we can maintain interest in the world without locking ourselves up in a rigid meditation practice. Being stuck in a rigid concept of what a meditator is, is no different than being stuck in other rigid self-concepts based on materialism.
These contemplations can also help our scientific thinking because observation is a big part of scientific advancement. We don’t have to identify with pure conceptual paradigms anymore because any theory, assumption, or measurement will be at least partially wrong. Concepts can be practical, but they are simplifications of a non-dual consciousness that is infinite, because of infinite interdependence. This means that there is an infinite amount of observation and reflection available to advance science, so science and awareness can work together indefinitely. Also from a healing perspective, we aren’t starting our engagement with life from a painful judgmental “I” narrative. Experience is a foundationless-foundation of aliveness.
One of the methods of integrating thoughts and sensations is to be willing to feel the thoughts as sensations, instead of escaping into them and following their goals. When it rebels, try to feel the sensation more. Explore it as you would explore sensations on your skin. We are not used to this, but if it becomes a long standing practice, the new sensing habits you cultivate can co-exist with intuitive thought habits. Then the practitioner doesn’t have to be at war with thoughts, or run away from thoughts. You can go towards thoughts and explore the sensations related to them. They keep vanishing and are disidentified with.
The Miracle of Experience – Rupert Spira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oWHbsHO2-0
A Body Free of the Tyranny of the Separate Self – Rupert Spira: https://youtu.be/ZHLG3Qs51nc
Are there stages of realization? – Rupert Spira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9AKvZgKfv8
Self-development after realization – Rupert Spira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JQkEloZmLY
The Problem of Oneness
As great as all these insights are, the Buddha had some warnings about one-ness. He looked at the 8th jhana as a perception attainment that requires effort to maintain. One-ness is also dissatisfying. Rupert when asked about his tradition compared to Buddhism he clarified that “I’ve not really studied Buddhism.” This isn’t of course a knock on him since the above instructions and descriptions could be studied for a lifetime. Learning never really stops, even for the supposedly “Enlightened.” These are all humbling practices for the smaller self. Thanissaro Bhikkhu still likes developing the Jhanas as a replacement for external pleasures, but also for another insight. When asked about Buddhist stream entry, he said “stream entry happens when you’ve got the mind as quiet as possible that you can through your concentration practice, and you start asking the question, is there still some stress here? And you look for it. And this is one of the reasons why you look for inconstancy, because you want to see the rise and fall of the level of stress experienced by the mind….and you being to notice that there are certain things that you do that are going to raise the stress level, even just minor things at this point in your concentration. You say I’m going to stop doing that, and you stop doing that, and that will take you to another level of concentration. So you go through the levels of concentration this way. Finally you get as far as you can go in concentration, and you begin to realize ‘there’s stress if I stay here and there’s going to be stress if I move…You neither stay nor move. There is no intention either way, because you realize that whichever way you intend, there’s going to be stress. It’s in that moment of non-intention that things open up…and it’s very impressive…It’s earth-shattering.” The indescribable Nirvana becomes an even deeper rest where “building”,”fashioning”,”creating”, “imagining” or “fabricating,” ceases. What makes us conscious also arises like thinking does.
There is not nothing; There is Experience – Rupert Spira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XrSI-mq1o4
Mind like fire – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=18115
Attention and Effort – Daniel Kahneman: https://rumble.com/v1gpl0j-attention-and-effort-daniel-kahneman.html
Thanissaro’s description of stream entry via the concentration path at 1:19:00: http://audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/3022.html
Another concern about one-ness, and interdependence, is how dangerous interdependence is. One could expand the self and act on a golden rule towards anything in consciousness. That sounds very laudable, but it’s quite possible to burnout with overwork. A servile co-dependency can develop without the person knowing what’s happening. All work requires some energy and computational processing that will drain energy no matter how much insight a person has. One-ness also includes viruses, parasites, accidents and evil intentions. As the self is expanded, the practitioner has to develop boundary skills, and make ample time available for rest. You may be able to provide role modeling behaviour with your non-dual practice, to be imitated and admired by others, but many people, or dangerous animals for that matter, will continue to be hostile. You must either leave the environment or fight back.
Other people’s dramas – Rupert Spira: https://youtu.be/YZiEcw2dbiM
Lastly, one-ness can also be an excuse to indulge in nihilistic pursuits of hedonism. Rupert floats a weak trial balloon of what the one-ness attainment can do for us, but also provides a warning. “In theory, only one such experience should be required to make it clear that the cause of the heart’s wound is not the absence of any object, state or relationship but rather the forgetting, ignoring or overlooking of our essential nature of ever-present and unlimited awareness, whose nature is peace and happiness itself. But in practice most of us need many such initiations in the form of failed relationships, misfortune, disillusionment or disappointment in order to realise this.” This makes his advice to do what is most interesting in the moment problematic. It may be true that practicing with a sense of force and obligation will only condition the sense of self further, but the other extreme is also possible. That sense of rebellion that accompanies most practitioners, who force the practice on themselves, to only abandon it, can be reasonably be negotiated with. The Buddha prescribed another practice of purposefully seeing downsides. All desires have some consequence to our health and wealth. We can’t always trust what we think is most interesting is really the best course of action. We can ask “what is the stress that I’m ignoring?” Avoiding some activities can actually create a counterintuitive form of pleasure. A pleasure in safety. One can use the dualistic narrative self to imagine consequences of a desire, and then come back to the present and relish in the safety of not acting. If a thought of becoming, or being-in-savouring, is weighed with consequences, then some of the harmless forms of pleasure can be acted on with more confidence and without paranoia. The forms of becoming that don’t survive the comparison can be let go of authentically. The renunciation is authentic because the aversion towards the consequences are authentic feelings. This is authentic change. The idea that “I did something before therefore I should identify and repeat” can be replaced with “I can now see and feel the downside to this desire and I’ve changed my mind.” The identification with the narrative “I” gets less sticky and one can even start walking towards a desire, contemplate on the way, and change one’s mind and go somewhere else instead. Thoughts also can be more integrated because any foolish thought is allowed, as long as it’s weighed with consequences. You can trust that if the negative feelings of consequences are strong enough, you’ll listen to them. Also when people provide us with good advice, but we want to rebel against being told what to do by people who are full of themselves, the imagination of consequences can be self-initiated and the feelings of aversion can create a sense of ownership in the decision. The final result is a form of self-conditioning that maintains a sense of agency, while also allowing deterministic perspectives on influences from culture and uncontrollable circumstances.
The Buddha’s Biggest Gift – Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/shorttalks/y2020/200203(short)_The_Buddha’s_Biggest_Gift.mp3
The reward of all this contemplation is a consciousness that gradually deconditions self-destructive forms of desire, allows for moderation with socially acceptable desires, and inclines the mind to rest in an alive awareness as a foundational experience to bring to our life explorations, instead of stale and stressful self-narratives. The emotional emptiness discussed at the beginning of this review, is filled more and more with an alive emptiness that is paradoxically fulfilling. Here many people move in different directions from this point on. One cannot live in nirvana and must return to consciousness. As Adyashanti notes, there is an advantage of being able to dip into a meditative repose, but it’s also balanced with what he says that “it’s nice to have the ‘eternal okay’ because you are not overwhelmed by the openness. Openness without the other side is overwhelming. Having the perfection of everything without the open heart is deadening. It closes you off in your own little cave.”
Wholehearted Engagement – Adyashanti: https://youtu.be/h3gVKplaUB0
Everything you’ve ever learned – Jack White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruYd9n008RM
Regardless, some people will live a monastic lifestyle where nirvana is prioritized. Some people will live a very conventional life but with a well-being they can tap into that they weren’t aware of before. They have emotional resources to face the world and make those realistic choices. When there are setbacks they can rest in awareness. Energy is precious and has to be preserved for when it’s needed. Some tilt into nihilism and live eccentric lifestyles. They may continue drinking, smoking, and eating whatever they want. They accept death and want to enjoy their favourite things without guilt and repression. Others wonder at the yearning in the mind and what it was trying to say all along. Instead of relaxing those voices, they listen to them. It’s often a launching pad to begin their exploration of dreams and to develop the sense of self beyond their early life personality type. The Universe still has mysteries, including why not all people who do these practices enjoy following the same path. The movement of The Universe has always been one of variety, and specialization. Humans are no exception.
The Anapanasati Sutta: https://psychreviews.org/category-contemp…anapanasatisutta/
Practicing the Jhanas – Stephen Snyder, Tina Rasmussen, Pa Auk Sayadaw: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781590307335/
Tina Rasmussen talks: https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/262/
Right Concentration – Leigh Brasington: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781611802696/
The Jhanas – Leigh Brasington: http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/janas.html
The Jhanas- Ajahn Brahm: http://dhammatalks.net/Books/Ajahn_Brahm_The_Jhanas.pdf
Mastering the Core Teachings of The Buddha – Daniel Ingram: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781911597100/
The Nature of Consciousness – Rupert Spira: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781684030002/
The Transparency of Things – Rupert Spira: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781626258808/
Be as you are – Ramana Maharshi: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780140190625/
Rumi: The Book of Love: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780060750503/
Meister Eckhart: http://www.mythosandlogos.com/eckhart.html
Magga-vibhanga Sutta:
Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn45/sn45.008.than.html
Bhikkhu Sujato: https://suttacentral.net/sn45.8/en/sujato
Bhikkhu Bodhi: https://suttacentral.net/sn45.8/en/bodhi
Jhana: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-samadhi/jhana.html
The Jhanas – Henapola Gunaratana: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratana/wheel351.html
Dvedhavitakka Sutta: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.019.than.html
Contemplative Practice: https://psychreviews.org/category/contemplativepractice/