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Jhana progress.

JoshuaJoshua Veteran
edited January 2011 in Meditation
I understand that talking about jhana is taboo, I don't know why. Maybe it's discouraging to novices, maybe some preach jhanic success under delusion. Some too conversative Christians have made taboo in discussions on the rapture. I don't understand that either. With jhana you must be envious, with rapture terrified pro inferno.

So please let this thread function as a jhanic progress, tips and general attention thread, or please PM if you think it's too taboo for public eyes! I really want to share my experiences; and I want to hear others' progress even more!

Thank you.
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Comments

  • DhammaDhatuDhammaDhatu Veteran
    edited January 2011
    :)

  • you might find shaila catherine's book "focused and fearless" interesting

    http://www.imsb.org/teachings/ff/index.phphttp://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/31/

    these talks as well

    http://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/31/
  • I will just say that jhāna is quite possible... and not that difficult if you practice anapanasati correctly.
  • Well, maybe I should elucidate a bit.

    Maybe this is taboo, but I've said it before several times on other threads throughout the past few months. I regularly practice jhanic mediation, in fact, I the first time it happened I panicked and had to do much Google-ing before I figured out what it apparently was. However, no monk has clarified this nor have I even been to a monastery. This being said, by now, I'm 99% sure I've been practicing jhanic meditation nearly every day for some four or five months. This is principally why I'd like to share experiences; to gain my own conviction in my own progress as well as general curiosity of what others experience.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    I personally believe that I experienced jhana about 3 years ago. Yeah, as I'm writing this it seems taboo. But I'll go on. It was after about 2 months of practice and it was great. It happened once and for about 3 days I experienced little or no hinderances. I don't know why but I think I stopped practicing so much after that and for a long time.Big mistake.

    I have been struggling immensly with Anapana Sati. I forgot the instructions and now that I look back on the same ones they don't quite work as much. Yesterday read some of "Mindfulness in plain english" and tried the instructions in there but lately I just get confused about like.. where you keep my attention. I even went on a 30 day retreat but I felt like I didn't know what I was doing and didn't experience any calm.

    A big problem is I used to watch my breath at my nose but lately I do not feel my breath at my nose at all. Don't know what to do. I just get a little confused and the fact that I had such a bad time at the retreat is a little discouraging.

    Oh wells that's my rant, I'll keep trying if anyone has advice that'd be great.

    Be back later lol.
  • Joshua, describe your jhanic experience.

  • A big problem is I used to watch my breath at my nose but lately I do not feel my breath at my nose at all. Don't know what to do.
    Why not use the abdomen or chest?

    I must admit, I'm a nose person myself, and tend to forgo sitting meditation when I'm stuffed up.
  • Jhana is in sutra. Just reflect upon your Jhanic experience with the sutra.
  • Well, maybe I should elucidate a bit.

    Maybe this is taboo, but I've said it before several times on other threads throughout the past few months. I regularly practice jhanic mediation, in fact, I the first time it happened I panicked and had to do much Google-ing before I figured out what it apparently was. However, no monk has clarified this nor have I even been to a monastery. This being said, by now, I'm 99% sure I've been practicing jhanic meditation nearly every day for some four or five months. This is principally why I'd like to share experiences; to gain my own conviction in my own progress as well as general curiosity of what others experience.
    I have had a similar experience. jhāna is possible, don't give much weight to those that say it is not possible.
    dooksta123
  • I personally believe that I experienced jhana about 3 years ago. Yeah, as I'm writing this it seems taboo. But I'll go on. It was after about 2 months of practice and it was great. It happened once and for about 3 days I experienced little or no hinderances. I don't know why but I think I stopped practicing so much after that and for a long time.Big mistake.

    I have been struggling immensly with Anapana Sati. I forgot the instructions and now that I look back on the same ones they don't quite work as much. Yesterday read some of "Mindfulness in plain english" and tried the instructions in there but lately I just get confused about like.. where you keep my attention. I even went on a 30 day retreat but I felt like I didn't know what I was doing and didn't experience any calm.

    A big problem is I used to watch my breath at my nose but lately I do not feel my breath at my nose at all. Don't know what to do. I just get a little confused and the fact that I had such a bad time at the retreat is a little discouraging.

    Oh wells that's my rant, I'll keep trying if anyone has advice that'd be great.

    Be back later lol.
    ...you can change the place where you follow breath, even the diaphragm!
  • JoshuaJoshua Veteran
    edited January 2011
    Joshua, describe your jhanic experience.
    I have some comments on my experience in another thread but I do not like my language or explanation well, the thread was a very poor mess. Only read it if you feel compelled.

    Otherwise I'll try to explain the actual process through a massive wall of text:
    I had no training nor did I have any methodical inclination as to what to do. I just tried meditation out, I assumed I was getting better as I kept feeling increasingly more compelled to do it. Eventually I could still my thoughts, there's a certain point halfway between jhana and the initial phase where there's a noticeable difference in perceptions and mental fabrications. The mind on all the grosser levels is quite still, and once this level is achieved it is unlikely that it will be lost unless one is inclined to move the body dramatically or faces lots of itches or farting. I have no proper words for it because I'm still not trained. If requested to elaborate on the subtleties, of which there are some constants nearly impossible as they may be to describe, I can attempt to go meditate immediately before reposting here.

    For me personally I don't practice breathing meditation because it seems to be too distracting, my mind keeps analyzing the breath, the rhythm and cadence. To go to this jhana requires so much more. Of course on account of never having tried breathing meditation for more than five minutes and scarce more than once or twice a week and even then only in the onset of my Shamatha meditation and especially when considering the Buddha himself said it was most imperative of all meditations to develop and depend on I figure I'm wrong in saying it won't take me to jhana, I simply haven't practiced it enough personally to take myself to jhana. I used to invent little concentration games which I later found out often paralleled Tibetan ones. For instance I'd visualize a dot, then two, three, four, five and then six (like on the head of Krillin); though I believe the esoteric Tibetan practice will not cease at six, sometimes I didn't either because obviously the number isn't important. What is important is to maintain the strictest and most scrupulous concentration. Supreme concentration. A concentration that no longer allows conceptualized thought, when you're more experienced you'll know that you're getting close to jhana and then it's time to let go of the conceptualization of striving for non-conceptualization, the wei wu wei, this is the most difficult part. Otherwise if you're a novice or completely oblivious as I was you must reply on intuition, which as I can attest to is entirely possible as long as you aren't trying to achieve anything. This was probably easiest for me since I didn't even know what jhana was, whereas now I will often have tidal waves of frustration in my mind because I'm becoming impatient with achieving jhana and then the whole meditation falls apart. Nowadays that frustration has been remedied because I fully understand the folly of relying on jhana because it won't be a savior, it shouldn't operate as a catharsis nor is it in accord with a proper sense of emptiness to desire it. To get back on subject, the games I played were many, another I played that I'd read about was to imagine where the location your hearing consciousness was and where your thoughts originate and to combine them like a thumb to a finger, then hold it. These two games like the many I played developed the same sort of concentration, like a muscle I was flexing. It felt like it came from the center of my brain, in the pineal gland (go figure..). This isn't important, what's important was the singularity of concentration that took me to jhana. Later on when I understood emptiness well I would do a more formal version of what I assume is insight meditation that was less demanding on the so called 'muscle flexing' part, it felt like I was seeking and destroying perceptions and mental fabrications through theory, if I temporarily became one with the emptiness and no-self idea, with near complete conviction, intellectually, it temporarily eliminates the roots that grow the sanskaric branches. In this way I find, on a good day, the ones which require little or no 'muscle flexing' I will be almost instantly be flung into jhana, like some jhanic satori. Currently I'll work on a more quantum psychics and sense-media/aggregate influenced form of meditation that goes hand-in-hand with the emptiness meditation I described again, it seems to work very effectively as the first time I tried it I reached jhana within ten to fifteen minutes.

    And here's the jhanic experience itself:
    The first time I achieved jhana it was like you'd read, a formless dimension. Let me stress dimension, there's a noticeable "slap-in-the-face" feeling, not literally, but it's quite sudden and distinct when you cross the threshold. The singularity hones in and in and in further and VOILA like an orgasmic explosion of a big-bang consciousness expanding so to speak, but more accurately, realizing it's own infinitude. The first time I didn't get to examine things well as I was struggling not to panic, since, honestly, I was wondering if I was achieving enlightenment. The feeling of space around me (I no longer felt like I was in the room I was in, or even in the universe for the matter) was spinning faster and faster. It felt like it must have been spinning thousands of miles per hour. The body orgasm feeling was swelling. It kept happening each day, I read that I had a clogged third-eye chakra, at least, that was the best Google could offer. It stopped but eventually I got a tense feeling in my frontal lobe, I'd leave my jhanic practices with a bit of a headache that lasted hours. I Googled much. At this point I lost the headaches and the jhana was stable enough to get beyond the orgasm part and to enter the second one. I could even achieve this improper meditative state described by Thanissaro as being a realm of non-perception that his master used to undergo surgery without anesthetic that I was describing here.

    Because of my living arrangements for the past two months or so I've been unable to meditate the five or so times a day I used to in order to get so adept at jhanic meditation, with all the noise and clanging my meditations are very short and I'm lucky to hit the first jhana for more than five minutes so I've been unable to develop them further. I think I may have been in the third jhana a bit, or it could also be the improper meditation described by Thanissaro. So I'm confused. He says you will be putting 'sticky notes' in corners of the mind, that's great for him, I have no master or sangha, nobody to even confirm what I experience. Jhana is like a great arabesque and yet mysterious art, therefore I started this thread.

    Apologies for the monolithic text wall. I hope you can help. I'd certainly like to help you if I can.

    Let me say again, please don't hesitate to PM.

    Thank you.
  • I personally believe that I experienced jhana about 3 years ago. Yeah, as I'm writing this it seems taboo. But I'll go on. It was after about 2 months of practice and it was great. It happened once and for about 3 days I experienced little or no hinderances. I don't know why but I think I stopped practicing so much after that and for a long time.Big mistake.

    I have been struggling immensly with Anapana Sati. I forgot the instructions and now that I look back on the same ones they don't quite work as much. Yesterday read some of "Mindfulness in plain english" and tried the instructions in there but lately I just get confused about like.. where you keep my attention. I even went on a 30 day retreat but I felt like I didn't know what I was doing and didn't experience any calm.

    A big problem is I used to watch my breath at my nose but lately I do not feel my breath at my nose at all. Don't know what to do. I just get a little confused and the fact that I had such a bad time at the retreat is a little discouraging.

    Oh wells that's my rant, I'll keep trying if anyone has advice that'd be great.

    Be back later lol.
    Wow a thirty day retreat? I'm jealous, or maybe I shouldn't be? What's it like?
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Good for you Josh! I only read some of your post but that's great. I read that some people consider 2 options after they experience jhana: 1. Master the first jhana so that you can go into it easily, then move to the second, do the same and ect. 2. Keep going untill you get to the highest jhana and master that one.

    Have you thought about that?

    I'll be back to try and answer your question.

    PS. You said you practice shamatha, what kind? Sorry if I didn't read it.
  • @Joshua, No clue why jhana would be taboo and hadn't heard that until this thread. You shouldn't worry about that here. It's not like proclaiming enlightenment or anything! Jhana is a meditative technique to bring the mind (mental factors) into unity, and if anyone has a problem with you talking about it... it's their problem! :)

    So what exactly did you want to talk about?
  • I don't know, honestly, I just meditate, from beginning to end there's no difference to me from shamatha to vipassana. Conforming to them has often intimidated or frustrated me because I seem to have success myself and yet I feel like the black sheep Buddhist who is doing so improper techniques in delusional jhana. Only the fact that I found out what jhana was after experiencing it makes me confident. That being said I only still my mind in whatever way works at the time, I improvise you could say.
  • @Joshua, No clue why jhana would be taboo and hadn't heard that until this thread. You shouldn't worry about that here. It's not like proclaiming enlightenment or anything! Jhana is a meditative technique to bring the mind (mental factors) into unity, and if anyone has a problem with you talking about it... it's their problem! :)

    So what exactly did you want to talk about?
    :)

    1. I just want to know if what I'm doing is similar to what others do.
    2. If I am experiencing jhana for that matter.
    3. I want to hear what others experience to both indicate points 1 and 2 as well as to have inspiration and a sort of 'guiding-light' for the future as well as to be generally 'well seasoned' on the subject of jhana.
    4. I want to know if my impromptu style of meditation is bad or okay. It seems like many have a strong and similar foundation that I don't share. Also I read that it's important to rely on yourself and not a master, which is a pro if what I'm doing is correct, obviously a big con if it's not correct. I imagine the middle ground is preferred, therefore I should have a stronger foundation while still relying on my own intuition, but I know nothing about the conformed standard of shamatha and vipassana.

    Thank you.
  • @Joshua:

    1. Personally I start with observance of the breath until the mind is calm and focused and then let the mind begin to observe the pleasant feeling that has arisen (without forcing). The mind is drawn to this bliss until it overrides any other thought or sense stimuli and becomes all-encompassing; like floating in an ocean of pure joy. [Up to the point where the mind is able to sustain this without any further effort. Rarely. It's too enticing, too easy to get attached to, so I don't let it happen often.]

    2. You'd know best; it's your mind. :D Jhana is a whole different ball-game from the norm, so it's kinda hard to miss that you've experienced an altered state of consciousness.

    3. Did I cover that?

    4. You've hit the nail on the head! A teacher can help you find the path, avoid the pitfalls, and guide you when you go astray... but ultimately everything outside of the mind is a mind object. The entire world of sights, sounds, bodily sensations, smells, tastes and thought is your teacher. Whether or not you choose an actual teacher is your call; there's no right answer, except that there's no right answer (for everyone).
  • JoshuaJoshua Veteran
    edited January 2011
    Thank you @Cloud, you've been most helpful!

    ..

    Hopefully you see this, as I've edited it in. I was wondering what the pros and cons of jhana meditation are? Why should I do it, but why should I hinder it as well? I thought jhana was a stepping stone to enlightenment, to so-to-speak witness the luminous mind until finally you let go of that luminous mind, to chisel the dirt from the mirror of the mind's reflecting nature until you shatter the mirror and become enlightened. I'm missing a big something here.
  • Hi Joshua,

    Thanks for your explanation. Firstly, I wouldn't worry at all about the fact that you haven't had any training in meditation. I'm sure you've had more than enough in previous lifetimes.

    I can't comment on whether what you are experiencing is jhana or not but I can say with certainty that you have developed a great deal of concentration which is absolutely necessary for jhana.

    Given that you have developed a great deal of concentration and have had these concentration experiences, I strongly suggest that you get yourself off to a Buddhist monastery to get the advice of some experienced monks. It's great to have these experiences but it's important to know what to do with them. How to direct them so that they lead to cessation. You can great concentration now but in future? Who knows? All conditioned things are impermanent. Talk to a Buddhist monk so that you can deepen your experience and direct it towards cessation.

    Oh well, that's all I can say not having experienced concentration as deep as yours. I guess I'm saying take advantage of your current well concentrated state to make the most of it.

    Kind Regards,

    Vangelis
  • JoshuaJoshua Veteran
    edited January 2011
    Aha, thank you very much for reading it Vangelis.
    Firstly, I wouldn't worry at all about the fact that you haven't had any training in meditation. I'm sure you've had more than enough in previous lifetimes.
    :p

    Maybe I've practiced the dharma in a past life. However, my karma apparently wasn't sufficient enough to place me anywhere but the middle of nowhere. *sigh* I was born in the biggest city of my state, then I moved to Bloomington for college where the Dalai Lama went that year, I asked why all my friends were stoked and I didn't even care, then I dropped out next year and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, mid-western US. Can't really blame it on karma can I, as Bloomington has many monasteries? :D

    Jokes aside, thanks for the advice, hopefully I'll be following it soon enough!
  • Do not many of the sages live alone??? Why do you believe it is a bad thing? Do you believe that other people are better than you, and therefore you need to be around them so they'll rub off on you and you can learn? You have just as much to teach as you have to learn.
  • The problem is that some areas of the mind can be a trap. I also don't fully understand enlightenment and I doubt I will in its entirety until I've reached stream-entry. I sort of need a thumbs up or down and a bump in the right direction here and there. That's it. My foundation is also pretty flimsy, like a house of cards some days. I've recently debated a number of times if Buddhism was for me, so you can see how I need help. But you're right in many ways.

    Thank you.
  • WhoknowsWhoknows Australia Veteran
    Hi Joshua, one thing that anyone can do is read. Read sutras, read books from today's masters. If you are fortunate then you may enter into absorption while reading Buddhist texts.

    Meditation must be backed with knowledge. Make sure that, to the best of your abilities, that you conform to keeping the best ethics you can. Don't be too concerned when you don't conform to your expectations, but continue to try your best. Ethics will improve the effectiveness of your meditation and will help to produce the external and internal causes and conditions conductive to meditation as well.

    Work out what vehicle is most suitable for you, which Yana. Mahayana is good because it is more strongly grounded in the phenomenal world due to the emphasis of compassion.

    "Mind at Ease" is a book on Mahamudra, which is the Great Seal (emptiness), is a great practise book to read and can answer a lot of questions that you have in meditation.

    Finally, Buddhism is not a religion, it is just a pointing out to the true nature of reality, the rest is window dressing. There is no escaping the nature of this reality no matter what path you take. Ultimately the Dharma is the dharma's, and the dharma's are not real. Yet to realise this, it is said, that we need to be mindful of the dharma's to avoid disregarding ethics which will result in meditative deterioration.

    Cheers, WK
  • Hi, WhoKnows. Are you the WhoKnows who used to write on the Buddhists LiveJournal community?
  • WhoknowsWhoknows Australia Veteran
    No, I do occasionally post in isangha, though its pretty quiet there at times. Looks like a common name though for lazy people like myself.

    Cheers, WK
  • I will take your advice. I do much reading on Access To Insight and I just read much of the Berzin Archives, so I'd say for now I'm non-sectarian until I attend a number of diverse monasteries. I'll place a hold on the book at the library's system or else put it on my 'when I've got money' list.

    People get access concentration reading on the dharma?
  • I wonder if there is anyone in your area who has experience with this. Or even online. I have only had 1 meditation where I felt a humming in my whole body that felt good. All the other times it is pretty ordinary.

    But I don't meditate that often at all!
  • edited January 2011
    ....... People get access concentration reading on the dharma?
    Maybe it's got to do with the two types of monks, I can't say for sure. The Cunda Sutta talks about two kinds of monks, viz. "Dhamma-devotee Monks" and "Jhana Monks". It would appear that these refers to (1) monks who are specialists in the Dhamma and devoted to memorizing and analyzing the Dhamma and (2) monks who are meditators.
    Cunda Sutta
  • Interesting.

    I want to thank you all for your help, it's very much appreciated, especially on this subject.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    >I sort of need a thumbs up or down and a bump in the right direction here and there.

    That is exactly what Buddhist teachers are for. :) Even if one does not live near you it should not be that difficult to contact one somehow.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Joshua, when someone enters jhana the 5 hinderances are not present. And don't quote me on this, but I think I heard one is free from hinderances for around up to 3 days afterwards. So.

    Next time you think you entered jhana, if you are curious maybe remember to check your mind for hinderances. Sensual desire, ill-will, sloth-torper, restlessness/remourse/anxiety/, doubt.

    And I suggest looking up the idea that they are not present for a while afterwards.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    I think I read online somewhere something about abandoning each hinderance individually. This is something I would like to work on to try and help with my meditation. Has anyone read this?
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Nevemind found it. Good thread be back later <3.
  • JoshuaJoshua Veteran
    edited January 2011
    Well for me, I cannot methodically eliminate each hindrance, it's too deliberate and hence conceptual. On every gross and nearly every subtle level what is to me identified as human thought is completely stopped and then some.

    I just watched the latest Zeitgeist movie yesterday and it had an interesting bit about explicit and implicit memory. Explicit being those memories you consciously remember, that people think they repress and such in Western society and try to eliminate only to discover that little has changed viscerally because of the implicit emotions. Implicit emotions happen as a fetus and continue onward, a conscious memory is not required but the mind adapts to the earliest situations in preparation for its perceived society.

    The reason I say this is because those implicit emotions, the ones nearly impossible to stop, seem to be what I mean by the subtlest levels. Not absolutely subtle, I can even have a tiny bit of conscious thought in jhana, though usually not without repercussions. Conscious thought leads to, "Oh no, don't think.. shh.. Are you still thinking?.. Aha you are, wait, this is thinking too.. okay I got it.. *wait I'm still thinking non-verbally*.. ugh I lost jhana!".

    From my experience, if I've rested in jhana for ten minutes or more, and the more the better obviously, my mind is almost blank of the aggregates when I exit jhana, if it was shorter probably because that description above happened, I was distracted by noise or I became drunk on the first jhana's body sensations then I will leave quite blissful like I've taken a very pleasant drug, bad thoughts creep up if the right scenario occurs. For me though even in the best scenario (which would be the second jhana and in and out of the third here and there for over an hour) my mind will be quite blank for an hour or so afterward with little desire to do my normal persistent and sometimes workaholic hobbies--which is quite odd for me--but it doesn't last for three days, at best three hours; though it makes me quite pensive about emptiness.

    Erm.. Most importantly my jhanic experiences have given me the brunt of my conviction to follow Buddhism even in the darkest moments when I've become a helpless victim of my ego, it is the ace in the hole when I quasi-proselytize my roommate with my fondness for Buddhism.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Curious.. where do you watch the breath? I have been having trouble trying to learn the belly method.

    It's not a good feeling when can't really meditate anymore.
  • I don't. Well, I might for the first few minutes to help calm myself.. But don't listen to me when the Buddha said otherwise.

    The best advice I can give is quite simple: just be. Your awareness that carries on from life to life has no lungs and diaphragm, it is only a very helpful but to me not an imperative tool, therefore I (still) don't do breath meditation but I imagine after a bit the goal of reaching jhana involves dropping conceptual thinking, in other words, you definitely shouldn't be analyzing the breath at a certain point, but of course, I have no clue what you experience so my advice might be entirely precocious. I myself as I resolved with Cloud intend to pratice more orthodox techniques for a better middle ground.
  • Can't really blame it on karma can I, as Bloomington has many monasteries? :D
    Dagom Gaden Tensung Ling Buddhist Monastery
    Address: 102 Clubhouse Drive, Bloomington, IN 47408 IN
    Tradition: Vajrayana, Tibetan, Gelugpa
    Phone: (812) 339-0857
    Website: http://www.ganden.org/
    Find on:
    Contact: Geshe Lobsang Sopa

    Gaden KhachoeShing Monastery
    Address: 2150 E. Dolan Road Bloomington, IN
    Tradition: Vajrayana, Gelugpa
    Phone: 812.334.3456
    E-mail: dgtl@ganden.org
    Website: http://ganden.org/index.php/home

    Ganden Dheling Buddhist Temple
    Address: P.O. Box 2242, Bloomington, IN 47402 IN
    Tradition: Vajrayana, Mongolian Gelugpa Buddhism Tibetan
    Phone: (812) 337-6114
    E-mail: mail@GandenDheling.org
    Website: http://www.GandenDheling.org
    Spiritual Advisor: Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche
    Contact: Padkar Rinpoche

    Sanshin Zen Community (Sanshin-ji)
    Address: 1726 S. Olive Street. Bloomington IN 47401
    Tradition: Mahayana, Soto Zen practice in the lineage of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi and Kodo Sawaki Roshi.
    Phone: 812-339-2635
    E-mail: admin@sanshinji.org
    Website: http://www.sanshinji.org/
    Main Contact: Sanshin Office Email
    Teacher: Shohaku Okumura

    Hmmm... there seem to be lots of Tibetan temples/monasteries - no wonder the Dalai Lama made a visit. If they're not close, just give them a call and talk to them about your experiences. They should be able to help you over the phone or they may tell you to come and visit them. They're all usually a very friendly bunch.
  • Thank you. Bloomington is about a three hour drive.
  • Oh... call and talk to them.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Josh techniques such as?
  • I wanna have an in depth conversation with a zen master...see whether he could catch me off guard haha
  • WhoknowsWhoknows Australia Veteran
    In my tradition we are encouraged not to focus on the jhana's. That's not to say that they don't occur, but only that our focus is 100% on insight and wisdom, not on analysis of experiences. Having said that you cannot separate experience and realisation can you? If you want me to share some personal experiences in no particular order (chronologically or importance): drowsiness, aching joints, boredom, excitement, moving scenery, dizziness, absorption, bliss, clinging heaviness (follows bliss), dosing, nodding, thought following, fantasising, discipline, mental spaciousness, internal physical lightening, external fading, energy, one pointedness, peace. I'm sure there's more including post-meditative experiences eg, including significant dreams. But if I was to fully analyse each state, in my tradition that would be called fabrication- adding a conceptual overlay onto something where we're trying to find and eliminate our conceptual overlays. When I meditate there used to be two purposes, shamata and vipashana. With Shamata I let whatever be, be and with Vipashana I investigate the role of mind to my subjective experience of reality. Of course, seeing the experiences above, sometimes I'm not so successful. One thing I am good at is not giving up (that's the only reason I've managed to achieve a black belt, it sure wasn't through natural ability! ). So what we say in karate goes here just as well: Never quit and remain teachable! The truth is there to be found.

    Cheers, WK
  • edited February 2011
    I've noticed that quite a few people in internet groups seem to talk about what they consider to be personal experience of jhanas. I think its a good idea to arrange to talk offline to a senior monk or teacher about it, because there are many different kinds of 'experiences' one can have in meditation.

    I was taught that one shouldn't get distracted by different experiences but should just let go of them again anyway....and keep practising !

    :)
  • Thank you for the input.

    As I become more knowledgeable on Buddhism and as that knowledge further embeds itself into my karmic urges so-to-speak I less and less find myself chasing jhana in meditation. However, it does seem to be an almost biological impulse as I've read that there's massive opioid and dopamine dumps when access concentration is achieved. Let me restate, as odd as it may be, I achieved jhana the first time without intention, I was entirely unaware of its existence; I was simply trying to progress my own brands of meditation in the beginning when, fortunately for my otherwise quasi-neurotic personality, I was simply too lazy to do the proper reading on proper meditation techniques.

    As implied, I fear if I'd been more diligent in my reading and had a more proper, traditional meditational goal in mind, then due to the very nature of jhana being directly proportional to non-conceptual thinking, I'd probably never have achieved it--which is very fortunate because jhana has served and still serves as my primary motivation to continue my dharmic journey with, as Fede would say, confidence in the teachings. Talk about a classic case of bottoming out and ending up on top.

    ..

    @shanyin
    Hey, I didn't respond to you sooner, I apologize. When you made the post I spent a couple of days thinking about what I could say, I even meditated with you in mind deliberating to write an as detailed an approach as possible. This was done on Notepad after which it sat for a couple days until my apartment flooded yesterday due to Indiana's incessant lake effect snows and I was forced to promptly turn off my computer--no file now. Are you still interested? I wouldn't mind seeing if my techniques are actually pragmatic for others.
  • the first time I reached jhana was after reading this:
    http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/The_Basic_Method_of_Meditation_by_Ajahn_Brahmavamso
    I'm really not sure that I have attained second/third levels of jhana, the first jhana is recognizable for me because of the feelings of rapture, I'm sure I haven't reached the forth Jhana but I may have reached 2nd/3rd. I've heard that some people only experience the first then the forth without definite stages in between.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Joshua I'd be delighted if you would. I read this forum a long time ago but I think just one of the reasons was the idea of the breathe not being available after death. That got me interested. Also I have been struggling with anapanasati and have just been doing breath counting and I'm keeping an open mind for other techniques in the future.

  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    Feel free to PM me, or write here, or not! lol :P.

    I really appreciate your thoughts.
  • the first time I reached jhana was after reading this:
    http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/The_Basic_Method_of_Meditation_by_Ajahn_Brahmavamso
    I'm really not sure that I have attained second/third levels of jhana, the first jhana is recognizable for me because of the feelings of rapture, I'm sure I haven't reached the forth Jhana but I may have reached 2nd/3rd. I've heard that some people only experience the first then the forth without definite stages in between.
    To progress through the "rupa jhana" is to basically reduce and/or eliminate the need for the initial "five jhana factors" that one develops in the first jhana to reduce and/or eliminate the "five hindrances". Eventually, in the fourth jhana, you are left with a feeling of neutrality or equanimity and one-pointedness. From there, you can work on the the "arupa jhana".
  • the jhanas are special in that they don't generate much attachment to it... if one understands that the effects can be experienced weeks after meditating.
  • I experienced third or fourth jhana (can't remember the definitions) by accident long before I experienced first jhana. it arose from an experience of terrible defeat and grief.

    Don't get too caught up with hierarchies by which to measure progress. Maybe they can be useful sometimes, but they're not the only way things can happen.
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