How do you reach jhana?

Jeffrey

Hi, I am having trouble reading because I am under a lot of stress with hearing psychotic voices.

Is there any basic guidance to reach jhana? I am so restless I don't know how I can read links, but we can try.

I want to reach jhana to purify my pointing out others faults in my mind. I have a hard devotion to meditation, but overwhelmed easily in reading due to the stress, which coincides with the voices.

moyshekapoyre

Jeffrey, have you read books on meditation, such as Brahm's "Meditation, Bliss, and Beyond"?

What I notice with many psychotic people is that the voices in their heads only exist when they are not concentrating on something else. Is this true for you as well?

If you are in mortal danger, do you focus on surviving, and then notice there were no voices during those moments of surviving? That's an extreme example.

moyshekapoyre

By the way, we all have voices in our heads. We are all psychotic to some degree until we are enlightened. Some of us just have learned to pay less attention to those crazy voices. Some of us think those voices are "ourself" and others think they are "outside ourself" and others of us may realize "there is no self."

Jeffrey

Yes, often when I am talking to someone else in person the voices silence. But in meditation they are constantly going.

Is that Ajahn Brahm? I have heard some of his youtube videos and really took to his way of talking, the peace and ease.

moyshekapoyre

Yes, it's Ajahn Brahm.

It sounds to me like you are not concentrating enough on your breath when meditating. Could this be the case?

As I said, we all have crazy thoughts that come from nowhere. As we begin meditation, we learn to focus our attention so that only useful thoughts are attended to. But it takes years and years to perfect your attention. Don't distress over having difficulties. Everyone does.

Jeffrey

I've experimented with different ways including the breath and counting. My attention has been drifting off to vision rather than the breath. I have also tried body scan and metta. And a few times just sort of sitting and looking up at the outdoors and sort of just feeling burdens off of me. Sometimes eyes closed sometimes open.

So I am trying a lot of different approaches. Some of them are to get peace to do others such as the breath. Like get peace closing eye and then open when I settle down. Or body scan to settle down.

moyshekapoyre

By the way, in case you are interested in the neuroscience, there are basically two main networks in the brain, the Default Mode Network, which produces an inner sense of self, as well as much random nonsense and daydreaming, and the focused attention network, which when highly attuned to, produces "flow states" like when you get "into the zone" while doing something like skiing, or meditating.

I try to focus on my breath all day long, every time I can remember to do so, because when I don't, crazy thoughts (many related to my "self", some not even related) are attended to and produce nothing but suffering or the causes of suffering.

moyshekapoyre

It sounds like you are doing fine. Just keep at it with the mindfulness. It does pay off, even though sometimes it seems you will get worse and other times better.

moyshekapoyre

You may want to consider stepping your practice up in whatever way seems reasonable, if you are serious about getting control of your mind's attention power.

That means finding a master that can help you progress. You may go on extended retreats, and eventually even become a monk.

moyshekapoyre

And actually, it turns out that the best thing for treating schizophrenia may not be focusing on the breath (which can make it worse for some reason), but rather just metta meditation. Here's a link: http://psychscoop.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/studies-metta-loving-kindness-meditation-can-ease-symptoms-of-schizophrenia/

Sabre

Forget about jhanas. If you strive for jhanas, that's another distraction, another craving. Just focus on the present moment. Trust your meditation object, whatever it is at that time. It can be the breath, but just as well something else like the body or metta. Or the present moment itself. Whatever makes you feel at ease. You have to find that youself. It can be that particular objects fit particular states of mind. I find that when I'm thinking a lot, it helps to focus on the sounds I hear. Maybe this helps for you too with the voices.

When you start meditating it is a good practice to try and find what the motivation is. Do you want to reach something? Take something out of it? Then it's craving. Try to drop this craving and meditation will go much better. Jhana may come, jhana may not come, it's not important. What counts is that we did the practice with a sincere interest in it.

Metta!

buddhistok

Forget about jhanas. If you strive for jhanas, that's another distraction, another craving. Just focus on the present moment. Trust your meditation object, whatever it is at that time. It can be the breath, but just as well something else like the body or metta. Or the present moment itself. Whatever makes you feel at ease. You have to find that youself. It can be that particular objects fit particular states of mind. I find that when I'm thinking a lot, it helps to focus on the sounds I hear. Maybe this helps for you too with the voices.

When you start meditating it is a good practice to try and find what the motivation is. Do you want to reach something? Take something out of it? Then it's craving. Try to drop this craving and meditation will go much better. Jhana may come, jhana may not come, it's not important. What counts is that we did the practice with a sincere interest in it.

Metta!

I'm very unclear on this as well. Especially having seen this video some time back:


"...because we expected that meditation led somewhere, and that somewhere is a pleasant experience"

also @Jeffrey I have schizophrenia and hear voices. I have a difficult time starting on even short books, and an even harder time finishing them. However, like you, I'm able to post to forums and read most short posts. Still, I gotta ask: how in the world did you manage over 5000 comments?

@moyshekapoyre I think there's a significant difference between the voices people like yourself experience, and the voices people like Jeffrey and me experience: the voices you have could be better described as "your own" voice or your conscience, or as simple verbalized thinking. With myself at least, and I imagine for jeffrey too, the voices sound like actual other people, and can easily be mistaken as 100% real. They also occur fairly frequently, are very bothersome, often terrifying and go away or at least lessen with medication.

Cloud

I think the mind imposes our own voice upon our thoughts, because I've experienced the opposite phenomena... the mind not imposing. It was jarring to experience thoughts that each had a unique voice, recognizable from various sources that I've heard throughout my life. This was one of the ways I've come to understand thoughts as not really being me (not-self).

Perhaps if the mind fails to self-voice certain thoughts, it can seem as if they don't belong to the person who is experiencing them, and that it's as if another person is speaking. This might explain "hearing voices".

Given that, maybe someone who hears voices can use it to their advantage... to help them understand that the thoughts which are experienced, both in their voice and in other voices, are not truly them/theirs.

Sabre

I'm very unclear on this as well. Especially having seen this video some time back:

While the guy in the video says some very valid things, I wouldn't give it too much value, because this tradition pretty much disagrees with all ordained teachers, openly on this website:
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/criticism/jhana_critique.htm

I prefer to trust ordained teachers, so I'll quote Ajahn Sumedho:

The jhanas are often spoken of in terms of 'attainment', but it's no attainment at all, it's more like abandoning, or relinquishing. Because jhana is a state when the five hindrances are suppressed or abandoned. By cultivating this spacious, expansive mind, you do actually develop the jhana factors -- like rapture, gladness, etc. -- but they arise naturally, without you trying to attain them.
https://sites.google.com/site/gavesako/my-texts/dhamma-teachings-of-ajahn-sumedho

DairyLama

I prefer to trust ordained teachers, so I'll quote Ajahn Sumedho:

The jhanas are often spoken of in terms of 'attainment', but it's no attainment at all, it's more like abandoning, or relinquishing. Because jhana is a state when the five hindrances are suppressed or abandoned. By cultivating this spacious, expansive mind, you do actually develop the jhana factors -- like rapture, gladness, etc. -- but they arise naturally, without you trying to attain them.
https://sites.google.com/site/gavesako/my-texts/dhamma-teachings-of-ajahn-sumedho

Good quote. Does he say anywhere how to cultivate a spacious expansive mind?

RichardH

Hi, I am having trouble reading because I am under a lot of stress with hearing psychotic voices.

Is there any basic guidance to reach jhana? I am so restless I don't know how I can read links, but we can try.

I want to reach jhana to purify my pointing out others faults in my mind. I have a hard devotion to meditation, but overwhelmed easily in reading due to the stress, which coincides with the voices.

Jeffery, never mind Jhana, or attempting to "purify" yourself. you cannot be purified... you don't need to be purified. Just be as you are, warts and all, crappy feelings and all. Just sit, sit with voices blabbing...feeling exactly the way you feel... no matter how you feel. That is sitting.. sitting without reaching

SattvaPaul

Hi, I am having trouble reading because I am under a lot of stress with hearing psychotic voices.

Is there any basic guidance to reach jhana? I am so restless I don't know how I can read links, but we can try.

I want to reach jhana to purify my pointing out others faults in my mind. I have a hard devotion to meditation, but overwhelmed easily in reading due to the stress, which coincides with the voices.

Jeffery, never mind Jhana, or attempting to "purify" yourself. you cannot be purified... you don't need to be purified. Just be as you are, warts and all, crappy feelings and all. Just sit, sit with voices blabbing...feeling exactly the way you feel... no matter how you feel. That is sitting.. sitting without reaching

Excellent advice.

Sabre

I prefer to trust ordained teachers, so I'll quote Ajahn Sumedho:

The jhanas are often spoken of in terms of 'attainment', but it's no attainment at all, it's more like abandoning, or relinquishing. Because jhana is a state when the five hindrances are suppressed or abandoned. By cultivating this spacious, expansive mind, you do actually develop the jhana factors -- like rapture, gladness, etc. -- but they arise naturally, without you trying to attain them.
https://sites.google.com/site/gavesako/my-texts/dhamma-teachings-of-ajahn-sumedho

Good quote. Does he say anywhere how to cultivate a spacious expansive mind?

Spacious expansive mind sounds really like something extraordinary, but what he probably means is just open presence to what is, just knowing, just being. Because that is what is he teaches on a lot.

Learn how to trust and rest in this state of pure knowing: It is like this. It can't be any other way. You need mindfulness (sati) to keep remembering this state and returning to it. This stillness of the mind is non-critical, non-judgemental. It's an intuitive, direct knowing, it's not analytical.

Or

The attitude is most important. To practise anapanasati, one brings the attention onto one inhalation, being mindful from the beginning to the end. One inhalation, that's it; and then the same goes for the exhalation. That's the perfect attainment of anapanasati. The awareness of just that much, is the result of concentration of the mind through sustained attention on the breath. From the beginning to the end of the inhalation, from the beginning to the end of the exhalation. The attitude is always one of letting go, not attaching to any ideas or feelings that arise from that, so that you're always fresh with the next inhalation, the next exhalation, completely as it is. You're not carrying over anything. So it's a way of relinquishment, of letting go, rather than of attaining and achieving.

The dangers in meditation practice is the habit of grasping at things, grasping at states; so the concept that's most useful is the concept of letting go, rather than of attaining and achieving. If you say today that yesterday you had a really super meditation, absolutely fantastic, just what you've always dreamed of, and then today you try to get the same wonderful experience as yesterday, but you get more restless and more agitated than ever before - now why is that? Why can't we get what we want? It's because we're trying to attain something that we remember; rather than really working with the way things are, as they happen to be now. So the correct way is one of mindfulness, of looking at the way it is now, rather than remembering yesterday and trying to get to that state again.

Here a bit more in a booklet:
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/now_know.pdf


I'm sure if you google a bit, you can find more.

But the essence is -and this is not just Sumedho saying this- if you want jhana, you can't have it. But that's ok, because even if you experience it, it still is impermanent, non-self and unsatisfying. It's just another experience, not worth more or less than any other.

Metta!

pegembara

A number of ways to still the mind and maybe the voices.

Using movements as in tai chi or mahasati [http://www.mahasati.org/Newsletter_4.html/ http://www.mahasati.org/manual--3.htm]

Chanting and using moktak [http://sgforums.com/forums/8/topics/296802] .

Kasina meditation http://www.project-meditation.org/a_mt2/kasina_meditation.html

Even metta meditation

Regards

Jeffrey

Thanks everyone, I've bookmarked this for reference. Hopefully I can report back.

Songhill

After the Buddha renounced ascetic practices (most likely Jain), he discovered a new path or magga. It was Jhâna/dhyâna.

"Then, Aggivessana, I thought: I remember that once when my father, the Sakka, was working (in the fields), I was sitting in the cool shadow of a Jambu tree. Separated from objects which awaken desire, separated from harmful qualities I reached a (state of) joy and happiness (pîti-sukha) accompanied by contemplation and reflection which is the first jhâna/dhyâna (meditation) and remained in it for some time. Could this be, perhaps, the way (magga) to enlightenment (bodha)? After this memory, Aggivessana, I had this knowledge: this is the way to enlightenment. [Then], Aggivessana, I thought: why should I be afraid of this happiness that has nothing to do with objects which awaken desire and nothing to do with harmful qualities. [Then], Aggivessana, I thought: I am not afraid of this happiness that has nothing to do with objects which awaken desire and nothing to do with harmful qualities" (Mahasaccaka Sutta).

According to this passage, meditation or jhâna/dhyâna is the way to enlightenment.

caz

Sit down and meditate, Stay with the object of concentration until all distractions are eliminated then you will enter Jhana after a period.

lamaramadingdong

I always thought you took a left at Samadhi.

DairyLama

I always thought you took a left at Samadhi.

DairyLama

But the essence is -and this is not just Sumedho saying this- if you want jhana, you can't have it. But that's ok, because even if you experience it, it still is impermanent, non-self and unsatisfying. It's just another experience, not worth more or less than any other.

I'm not sure I agree with the last line, but I do agree with the idea that a spacious letting go is an effective approach.

Sabre

But the essence is -and this is not just Sumedho saying this- if you want jhana, you can't have it. But that's ok, because even if you experience it, it still is impermanent, non-self and unsatisfying. It's just another experience, not worth more or less than any other.

I'm not sure I agree with the last line

That's ok. What I meant is that in meditation I find it helpful to give every experience the same value; in other word to practice equinimity. Jhana or no-jhana, react the same. It's just what it is; another expeirence.

son_of_dhamma

Like you and some of the other posters I have hallucinated voices. I also have a similar mental disorder. Meditation has never exactly reduced or increased the occurrence of these voices. However, when I am more focused, whenever a facial or audible hallucination occurs I find myself immediately and effortlessly recognizing it as "an hallucination" and immediately it fades like I'm just imagining it. So, because the hallucination is a physiological event, NORMAL meditation alone doesn't affect it. But your focus can be very effective in reducing the voices to mere "imagination."

I hope that helps? Often times I have broken down with anxiety attacks and been overwhelmed by this, so I find myself empathizing deeply with this topic.

DaltheJigsaw

Hi, I am having trouble reading because I am under a lot of stress with hearing psychotic voices.

Is there any basic guidance to reach jhana? I am so restless I don't know how I can read links, but we can try.

I want to reach jhana to purify my pointing out others faults in my mind. I have a hard devotion to meditation, but overwhelmed easily in reading due to the stress, which coincides with the voices.

What type of voices? What do they sound like? How often?

DaltheJigsaw

Thanks everyone, I've bookmarked this for reference. Hopefully I can report back.

Please do!