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Jhana progress.
Joshua
Veteran
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.
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.
0
Comments
http://www.imsb.org/teachings/ff/index.phphttp://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/31/
these talks as well
http://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/31/
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 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.
I must admit, I'm a nose person myself, and tend to forgo sitting meditation when I'm stuffed up.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
..
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.
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
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?
Jokes aside, thanks for the advice, hopefully I'll be following it soon enough!
Thank you.
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
Cheers, WK
People get access concentration reading on the dharma?
But I don't meditate that often at all!
Cunda Sutta
I want to thank you all for your help, it's very much appreciated, especially on this subject.
That is exactly what Buddhist teachers are for.
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.
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.
It's not a good feeling when can't really meditate anymore.
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.
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.
Cheers, WK
I was taught that one shouldn't get distracted by different experiences but should just let go of them again anyway....and keep practising !
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.
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.
I really appreciate your thoughts.
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.