It is not even access concentration the Jhana 1 description. It is "just" the natural joy that arises from doing wholesome states like ethical behavior or generosity or unconditional love. (Which is good! Really good! just lets not appropriate the term 'jhana')
It is great people are discovering that there is a happiness within that is not dependent on getting things or things being a certain way and you can increase and cultivate wholesome states that are outside the sensory world. But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body. They are rather like a boat and its wake... the wake is the feelings but the boat is something else - they are the wholesome states. We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable. For instance with metta the boat would be the intention "may I be happy" the feelings are the by-product or wake. Jhana is proper like a boat that suddenly unexpectedly hits the shore... It rocks and blows the mind (and as the mind contains model of the world - it feels like the world shook a bit then froze). A good "geeks guide" is "Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond" written by someone who finished a physics degree at cambridge and spent 9 years with Ajahn Chah.
If we instead mistake something else for "jhana" like some positive feels, we're going to be stuck cultivating a local maxima. It's not to say the practice is wrong, it's actually quite good. It's just not jhana. We should listen to the professional community just like we listen to the professionals of physics in academia, instead of some posts from people on the internet that have done a few 30 day retreats.
But please do not call it jhana and have some humility ... these terms are central to some of the okdest institutions in the world and theres a professional community in the dharmic traditions who literally do this full time all over asia.
If someone wants to hear a competent speaker who has done the necessary time and training at those institutions and is also trained in the conventional university system, someone like Ajahn Brahm (Theoretical Physics Cambridge) Beth Upton (Economics Cambridge) or Shalia Catherine or Sayadaw U Jagara
I dunno, I think it’s worthwhile to acknowledge that this describes the (very?) shallow end of the pool but these language game land wars are profoundly uninteresting to me.
This–and TWIM jhanas in general–certainly involve the arising of the relevant jhana factors. People feel real and somewhat life-changing experiences of piti, sukha, equanimity… are those, due to limited concentration, below some critical threshold to earn the name “jhana”? Sure there are reasonable arguments for this position but it’s just a language game. Both strong and weak versions of these states are real phenomena that lead to increases in wellbeing.
Besides, it’s not even entirely clear that the earliest texts are actually describing something all _that_ much more concentrated than Nadia does, although the later visuddhimagga most certainly does, and those teachers certainly teach it.
I’ve heard some teachers contrast Sutta-jhanas to visuddhimagga-jhanas and I think that’s a reasonable distinction.
Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one.
So it's actually very harmful to do these claims; each dhyana (or jhana) level corresponds to a certain level of wisdom, and you are supposed to have less and less afflictions as you move up. The problem with meditation training is that is very common (and easy) to get sidetracked for 10 years thinking you have attainment but you are stuck. The Chinese style is to find a good teacher, an enlightened teacher, a so called Good Knowing Advisor who can certify your attainment or put you on the right track. Because otherwise it's just wishful thinking.
Best or luck to the author, but like the GP said, have some humility and find a competent, certified teacher. Making false claims, even out of ignorance will prevent you from accessing the proper instructions in the future.
>Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one.
To be fair, the Pali Canon is filled with episodes of followers spontaneously achieving arahantship after practicing only a brief time. I'm having trouble finding the sutta, but even the Buddha says with a single moment of appropriate practice, enlightenment is obtainable immediately.
Sure! But those were not ordinary people but special disciples, who had accumulated alot of blessings over a long time, thus were able to meet the Buddha and become enlightened with a couple of sentences from the Buddha. Still, the Buddha himself certified their enlightenment, they didn't go around claiming it themselves. Huge difference.
"Energy" is also a "language game war" between internet posts on physics and professional physics.
> This–and TWIM jhanas in general–certainly involve the arising of the relevant jhana factors.
Yes. So someone suggested calling them "mindfulness of the jhana factors". Also the word for joy in several languages is "piti". We can talk of joy and happiness, and see it's not the same as jhana. Is any joy and happiness from non-sensory wholesome states jhana? No.
> People feel real and somewhat life-changing experiences of piti, sukha, equanimity… are those, due to limited concentration, below some critical threshold to earn the name “jhana”?
Yes I don't want to dismiss these states they are wholesome, just not jhana. Do cultivate joy in wholesome states!
> Besides, it’s not even entirely clear that the earliest texts are actually describing something all _that_ much more concentrated than Nadia does
Well, how do the early texts describe the insights that happen as a result of jhana? they are quite deep and quite challenging to conventional world view (just like if someone did an excellent physics experiment). Consider AN 9.42... senses disappear to the mind at the first jhana https://suttacentral.net/an9.42/en/sujato
And anyway… isn’t it the case that Theravadan meditation practice went practically extinct before being reconstructed from the suttas and commentaries sometime in the 18th/19th centuries? Vipassana at least was reinvented as such. Unless some enclave somewhere preserved an actually unbroken thread of jhana practice based on what was written in the suttas (maybe there was?), it weakens the authority of interpretation argument anyway!
I think there's always been monks meditating following the vinaya strictly in forests. They may not have a marketing department.
However that sort of question " isn’t it the case that Theravadan meditation practice went practically extinct" is a very theravada move as the "way (vada) of the elders (thera)" it always asks "is this modern buddhism really what the buddha taught" and that characteristic emphasis at the center distinguishes it from the mahayana
Fair. Probably this phenomenon is more limited to Vipassana specifically than I was guessing.
I take the point about the Theravadan rhetorical move here but I still feel like at the very least the original texts deserve to not be written _out_ of the definition of a word if they can be reasonably interpreted to mean something different from what’s practiced in schools working from later turnings and teachings.
That leaves room for determining what is a reasonable interpretation though, and I am extremely far from any kind of authority on that.
> Well, how do the early texts describe the insights that happen as a result of jhana?
The main reference I can think of off the top of my head is something along the lines of “with a mind thus purified [by jhana] the meditator inclines the mind to [insight practice]”, which feels compatible with either the very strong Vsm version or the weaker end of loose interpretations of the suttas. Even a really really weak experience of J4-flavored equanimity still reduces stray selfing enough to make insight practice work better. Obviously this effect is magnified many many times by the pa auk style jhana states.
Perhaps there are other specific claims I haven’t read.
[edit to respond to AN reference in edit] interesting, first I’ve seen this one. On one hand it does seem to imply a slightly higher level of concentration than other suttas I’ve read but even here it only talks about elimination of desirable/arousing sensory phenomena, not the sense of “pretty much all sensual phenomena” that Vsm points to. I don’t actually have a super hard time squaring this with what Jhourney and TWIM teach.
Another one to read would be the Uppakilesa Sutta (MN128) which the buddha is giving specific meditation advice to someone who is experiencing lights but not yet cultivated first jhana. It's an awesome sutta as it also connects that depth of practice with communal harmony and how that sort of inner emotional "good-with-oneself" connects with deep meditation and it's also a clear example of the buddha talking about first hand experience in a phenomenological way that we see common today.
Vitakka and vicara are these two terms translated as applied and sustained thought or so, and are kind of famously debated in terms of their specific meaning.
Some translations/interpretations just take this to mean that the second jhana is “stable” and doesn’t require constantly redirecting your attention at it to sustain it, while the first takes active maintenance. Others interpret it in more of an “any kind of thinking” sense.
This is what I expected just from the title- anytime I’ve seen the jhanas mentioned online most of the responses are “that’s not the jhanas, this person does not even understand what they are” and then the followup comments are each someone saying the same about the above commenter.
Isn't the goal 'may I be happy' at odds with the underlying philosophy as it ignores the reality that without sadness, we cannot understand being happy. Wouldn't 'may i be at peace' or 'may i be present' be more suitable? And even futher 'may I' is a wishing of a future state which is a attachment to a certain state and which also means we are not at peace nor present. If we constantly wish this, are we not missing the point?
The description in brackets for each jhana, if that's what you're referring to, seem to be sourced from "dhammawiki.org".
> But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body.
I mean, they are referred to (the first 4 jhanas) as the "rupa jhanas" - that is, form or bodily jhanas. That's because they're coarse and involve sensations of the body and materiality.
> We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable.
I think the article may gloss over it a bit, but the author does seem to say this too - in that the meditation practice aspect of it is just a way of organising attention such that the jhana state is invoked (they describe it as like a "sneeze", in that there is an intentional, physical build up followed by an involuntary and hard-hitting release, and that they hit "hard and fast") - and then the practical technique aspect of the sitting is not really useful because the jhana takes over. That sounds pretty accurate to me, as a practitioner of Theravada for 10 years or so.
I'm not that familiar with them but the people I know that do the traditional jhanas I think some think they are mistaking a profound state called "bhavanga" for jhana. (It's mentioned page 140 of Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm and in the first few pages of Pa Auks book as something often mistaken for jhana and nibanna - a sort of cessation).
They are good states and do it, wholesomestates are good joy in the wholesome is good.I am interested in not appropriating words that are well understood by communities for 100's of years and taking amateur internet posts about them as truth. Words like "Energy" should be taken as understood from the physics community, although we understand in certain contexts someone else may use that word in other ways. It's the same when it comes to the term "jhana".
Still, pass. Seems weird to fear standing on the shoulders of giants for fear of appropriation. And to be clear I think you sharing your opinion and expertise is great, theres just this element of 'leave it to the experts' when we are talking about a sort of bodily understanding that my culture seems to utterly lack that I disagree with.
One of the interesting insights into society at large is that one of the big divisions of knowledge is into the pots of "benefits others that you know this" and "other". There is a lot of social effort put into spreading political memes (as the easiest example) because that will influence society in a way that is favourable to the meme-er. Ditto a lot of commercially useful skills are spread because it is in everyone's interests that businessmen are competent. Messages of peace, kindness and (ironically) war get a lot of play because they are all helpful in various ways if other people know about them.
Reading up on the jhanas they are clearly a very real, very distinct thing. But they aren't obviously to the benefit of anyone except the practitioner and it is practically impossible to verify if someone has actually experienced them. So they drop out of the conversation pretty quickly unless they are attached to something else (this is a large part of the genius of Buddhism and other religions, attaching good ideas to social rites).
> they aren't obviously to the benefit of anyone except the practitioner
Most of the people I know who've gotten into jhana really do talk a big game about how it's affected their behavior in the world in ways that obviously benefit others. Being more compassionate, kind, patient, accepting, forgiving, etc.
Personally I don't think I've gotten to jhana, but if nothing else the traits I've cultivated through meditation have allowed me to feel more grateful and loving towards those around me, and that's of simple obvious value to them (as well as me). If jhana means doing that even more reliably, then again I'd call that obviously of value to others and the world at large.
The thing that I came to understand after experiencing what I did (I won't call it jhana because I haven't yet found a teacher to ask and I don't want to misspeak) is that our behavior is fundamentally connected to our internal state and emotional needs. These can be as deeply rooted as traumatic experiences or even mild preferences we have. The experience that I had almost feels like an internal sense of nourishment for these needs.
It starts as joy and happiness and settles into this sense of stable and calm contentment that isn't dependent on anything in the "external". You realize and deeply understand that you don't "need" anything to be content. Thoughts just fade in and out and eventually disappear.
After spending some time there I also realized how much effort the mind spends protecting the "model of the world" it's built up over time and how much stress it gets put under when something challenges it. It's hard to describe this in terms of the senses but you can almost "see" the struggle because it contrasts so much to this other state of pure calm and contentment that you can now access.
And because you can now access it (through staying on the path) it becomes a sort of refuge and eventually feels like source of strength.
And through having that I started asking myself why not just choose to be compassionate and kind? Why let the mind stress itself out over truly meaningless things when we now know how to calm it down and be content? Why protect the model of the world we've built up when it is so obviously limiting the depth of life that we can access and share?
Not that any of this is easy, and its definitely a journey but it's one worth going down.
Is the implication that those who aren't talking about it are a set of people for whom experiencing jhana was net neutral/negative for the people around them?
The implication is that people just don't spend much time talking about jhanas at all.
There are ~3,000 living billionaires. People talk about them continuously. Their actions are studied, their motives are studied, their contribution to society continuously assessed. The top few are household names.
There are countless living people who achieve jhanas. The topic comes up in conversation basically never. I know someone who I'd confidently say has gotten there. It hasn't yet inspired them to do anything new and they generally don't bring it up in conversation with people since it leads to a lot of woo and disagreement.
Jhanas are distinctive states reached when you do concentration meditation deeply. Like, when you go this deep you'll see this weird thing. And when you get this deep you see this other weird thing, and so on. I've gotten to the third or thereabouts.
But that was when I was really into concentration meditation. (And believe you me, there is real magic there).
These days I do the other thing (vipassana. Dry. That is to say, without concentration meditation prep).
I've been meditating pretty consistently for the last year 20 min meditations or more every day and though I've put way more than the time the OP put in trying to achieve jhanas I couldn't even reach the first one.
I wonder what I'm missing!
I went on a Jhourney retreat with about a year of daily practice under my belt. I didn't reach jhana, and was a bit discouraged after finding out that almost everyone else around me had! I think around 75% of those who attended based on my calculations. Including those with almost no background in meditation at all. But also some people who came to the retreat had already had access to these states. I do credit the retreat for reinvigorating my practice though, and reinforcing that jhana or no you should be aiming to be relaxed and joyful after most meditation sessions or you're probably doing it wrong.
If you're a beginner, you'll need to work your way up to at least 45-minute sessions. You're not going to be able to enter jhanas in 20 minutes unless you're very experienced and entered them consistently for a long time. For me, it was when I got to 1 hour sessions when I started to experience the deep absorption for jhanas.
I find that multiple sessions is the way to go. not necessarily longer. Like, dedicate 3 days to chill stuff (walking, cleaning...) and meditation. Meditate, say, 6 times a day for 20-30 minutes. That'll do it. Fasting helps too.
I'm in a similar boat. I wish it were possible to externally verify in some way. I'm a bit skeptical of how easily a lot of newcomers to meditation claim to have reached them.
Although I agree that a lot of people may be overblowing their experience, either by mistake, through ignorance, or else for clout/internet points, think about it this way: when the Buddha was alive, the jhanas were standard practice, and had been for as long as yogis could remember. The Buddhist teaching almost assumes a familiarity with the jhanas and doesn't really explicitly teach how to access them. The entire teaching is based on the Buddha learning the jhanas from various teachers of the time, mastering them, and eventually finding them unsatisfactory. Yogis who came to the Buddha seemed to already have an understanding and background with jhanas, which the Buddha then taught them to use to realise what he himself had realised. What this tells us is that jhanas aren't some kind of lofty, difficult to achieve thing that only a select few ever achieve; instead, it seems to suggest that it's something that's available to anyone with enough dedication and is something that transcends traditions or religions, and has been known about for millenia.
I moved from Transcendental Meditation (which I had learned previously) which doesn't quite get you into these states to concentration and insight according to this book and it got me there.
It took me much more time (~3 years) than the author here. I meditated following a book. And the what is described here as J7/J8 happened while meditating. But, J9 happened where I didn't expect it. My dad learned yoga from a guru, and he taught me some Pranayama to ease my breathing, as I have chronic cold often. That works, but I experienced J9 (here) while doing those Pranayama rather than Sati meditation. I didn't expect it or was "trying" anything, but it happened there.
The author sheds no light in their state of learning or lifestyle. If I had to venture a guess, I would think that they play significant role..
Following Buddhist eight fold path as much as you can, serving the needy, leading a mindful life, and knowing the basics of mythology, philosophy, etc. probably will help.
> The author sheds no light in their state of learning or lifestyle. If I had to venture a guess, I would think that they play significant role..
I think that's an excellent point, though the author sets up the article in a scientific way, describing the practice as mechanical - a lot of the ability to access these states comes from coming into it with a wholesome and cleaned up mind, which comes about through doing wholesome actions, saying wholesome things (and not lying), and generally the practice of "sense restraint" - not allowing unwholesome influences into your life. Otherwise, you sit down and your mind is a well of negative thoughts and feelings that completely cloud your ability to access jhana.
Of course, if you're the sort of person that behaves, speaks and thinks that way in general, you may not realise that that's one of the main things that allow you to access the jhanas.
Do it longer. 20 minutes is just a settling in period. The more you do it the better you get.
Physical exercise first can help one mentally calm down quicker.
Finally, studying others methods is helpful. The book "the six dharma gates to the sublime" was helpful for me personally for jhana practices, and there are lots of other great resources and teachers available if you look.
I spent two decades following this approach. I didnt know that I didnt know what meditating was until I did a 10 day silent Vipassana retreat. But even a decade into learning Vipassana I couldnt get the jhanas and took me two years pretty heavy practise for it to click.
some of us just take a lot of work to get there. monkey brains maybe.
there's no real difference between you, me, and Mr. Gautama in mental structure. circumstances of course matter, but instruction, especially the interactivity is decisive.
yes, there's a practice element, to do the dissociative steps well, to get the right body sensations amplified with the right mental ones, etc.
the start-up-y way is not better or worse for you if it works. the traditional way(s) work vy constraining as much of the circumstances as possible, so the originating mind state is "exactly" as the one the instructor had.
I think the startuppy way might be a little worse, in terms of how it can set up more craving and comparison with others, particularly if you're convinced you need to experience the full Visuddhimagga jhanas to get the really real insight practice going, and others are ahead of you somehow.
I've experienced both the Sutta jhanas (in a TWIM retreat) and the VM jhanas (spontaneously after a lot of practice). They're wonderful and the VM jhanas in particular really boost sensory clarity and concentration which is certainly helpful for insight practice, but a sustained practice or rather, sustained intention to practice well have been more helpful to me over the years.
> there's no real difference between you, me, and Mr. Gautama in mental structure.
This is just not true. There are athletes with sub 100ms reaction time. The average person is over twice of that. It only makes sense that there are meditative athletes whose abilities surpass those of the average guy.
The ancient meditation wizards of yore preferred to recruit those with "habitual one-pointed attention" (these days we call them aspergers etc). Because they are uncommonly good at concentration.
it's not that simple. (neither meditation nor Aspergers [high-functioning autism].)
there are at least a hundred[0] traditional techniques for meditation. one needs to find those that work. for someone with a highly monotropic autistic trait techniques that work with a singular focus are probably more well-suited, while someone with "kind of the opposite" (hello ADHD people) should try those that are more cognitively active, have mindfulness elements, and build rich imaginary worlds.
Please take care. There's the "dark night of the soul". Everybody is different. I and my wife experienced something similar to this phenomenon but my wife decades (!) earlier than me and she was completely alone. She had meditation therapy because of her cerebral palsy and when she fell into the night dark nobody understood her. I learnt a lot from her experience. Today I explain it like this: If you realize that everything is empty you lose ground. I and my wife are not experienced meditators and both stumbled upon it by accident separately and not at the same time.
What hit both of us hard is: if even being good and doing good things is empty then what's the point? Your dark night of the soul is probably different, so it does not make sense to tell too much about our experience.
The only thing I want to tell you: If you are going to meditate, you'll probably need help at some time. If someone supports, understands and loves you, this could be perhaps enough. If you see someone meditating needing help, try to help.
This said, it is better if you have an experienced person helping you, but if not, a good, understanding friend is better than nobody. Don't be afraid and start meditating anyway. Just keep in mind that not many people talk about the dark night of the soul and so most meditators in the West are completely blindsided.
If this happens to you, take rest and look for an helpful friend.
There is usually a marked difference between "insight" practice (that give realisation about the fundamental nature of experiences) and "concentration" practice (i.e. jhanas). Just practicing jhanas is not all that conducive to mental upset - you purify your behaviour, focus the mind, suppress the hindrances, and experience intense states of wholesome qualities that take over your consciousness for a while. There's nothing negative or dark about that. But Buddhist practice goes beyond jhana practice by using the power of that focused mind and suppressed hindrances to analyse experience through the lens of the Buddhist teachings i.e. right view. The issue comes about if the analysis comes from an incomplete or wrong view, leading to nihilism. It's best to stick to "pure" jhana practice and not meddle with insight practice if possible, if one doesn't have access to reliable teacher than can correct misconceptions in view that lead to negative outcomes.
The other thing is that "pure" jhana practice, when done correctly, kind of sets up the mind with a kind of wholesome "blank slate" from which to do the analysis that leads to insight. Some traditions, especially those that have been imported as "secular mindfulness" to the west, tend to emphasise just doing that analysis of experience without too much jhana practice involved. If you don't already have a very wholesome mental state (i.e. the kind of mental state that comes about from living in a monastery and limiting the actions and speech being undertaken) then there can be a whole lot of mess to sort through and opportunities for unwholesome states of mind to latch on and become the basis for your worldview. It's not a coincidence that a lot of the narrative and commentary about mindfulness and the "dark night of the soul" (i.e. dukkha nanas) comes from those traditions, but isn't mentioned in other traditions that emphasise practice differently.
Note that "insight" meditation without Samadhi/Jhana practice is sometimes called "dry insight", and a lot of "insight" focused teachers still emphasize Smadhi/Jhana as an important part of practice.
Also note that generally, traditional Buddhism tends to see building virtue in everyday life as a necessary prerequisite for meditation. You can be a lay Buddhist by being virtuous but not meditating, but not the other way around. A lot of people in our western culture tend to approach it the other way, with meditation as the defining practice and virtue as a secondary thought. I remember hearing of a meditation teacher who loved to start meditation retreats by saying something like "most of you would probably benefit more from hosting a family of refugees, rather than coming to a silent retreat", which would upset quite a few participants. If you want to ground this in meditation, practices such as "loving kindness" meditation are very helpful, and can help overcome/avoid a dark night.
There are also other more "modern" "traditions" (if you can call something that is at most a few decades old a tradition) that can help deepening insight into emptiness _while_ also increasing a sense of wonder and respect for the world, rather than falling into nihilism. I am in particular thinking in Rob Burbea's "Soulmaking Dhamma". To summarize it, he proposes that, given the insight that there is no reality without a "way of looking" (his way to summarize emptiness), it is not only OK to embrace a way of looking, but we have flexibility in doing so - and switching between such ways of looking in this way helps deepen insight into emptiness, rather than lead to delusion.
This does not make immune to feelings of confusion and grief, but can help work with them. Also note I am by no way a spiritual teacher, and what helped me might not help you.
To add to this, you're more likely to find someone who experientially understands what you're going through (and how to deal with it) in Buddhist circles, esp. those lineages who primarily focus on meditation (Zen, Chan).
Even if you don't necessarily prescribe to a Buddhist world view, being able to talk to someone who not only understands what you're talking about but has also gone through it and knows precisely how to get through it, helps immensely.
OP, I hope that you and your partner landed and got some intuition about the answer to your question(s). If you want someone (meditator) to talk to, my email is in my bio.
Can recommend "Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing" by David A. Treleaven on this particular subject, especially for people working in that space.
I dunno. I heard a story about Ayya Khema that she basically just stayed up all night for a while just committed to learning the jhanas.
One of the problems with all the stuff is that it's very hard for us to know what other people have experienced. So who knows. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Let's not be so closed-minded about it. People are different.
Most of the "results" of various forms of "meditation" have an element of "time served" (time spent "doing" the particular "activity") before they arise.
It is extremely common for people to experience an "early" result and mistakenly believe it is a "later" (much later) result. Among the many reasons why one is not supposed to develop attachments to the "results" is this very mistake.
"heard a story" her whole life was dedicated to meditation practice so I doubt it happened in a night. a lot more context required to make that claim. and if you look at her history she did the long yards in retreats. no short-cuts, much as people want to think there are.
I have never come across a Buddhist source saying that some people are inherently more advantaged than others.
But I did come across some interviews of great Tantric gurus, and they all say that some people are more in inherent advantage over others in terms of spiritual progress.
>Then, understanding Brahmā’s invitation, the Buddha Vipassī surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha, out of his compassion for sentient beings. And he saw sentient beings with little dust in their eyes, and some with much dust in their eyes; with keen faculties and with weak faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and hard to teach. And some of them lived seeing the danger in the fault to do with the next world, while others did not. It’s like a pool with blue water lilies, or pink or white lotuses. Some of them sprout and grow in the water without rising above it, thriving underwater. Some of them sprout and grow in the water reaching the water’s surface. And some of them sprout and grow in the water but rise up above the water and stand with no water clinging to them.
This is from Digha Nikaya 14. There is another one, but I don't remember which sutta, where Buddha says that for some people the path is long and hard, while for others it's short and quick.
I interpreted this as being in a better place due to entirely one's own background after their birth- i.e. upbringing, education, work, mindset, intelligence, etc.
Where the tantric gurus say that some people are ahead of other people from their birth - in a very clear and unambiguous way. In a very "the force is strong with this one" vibe.
I see. I don't subscribe to Tantra, so can't comment on that. What I believe is that there is no magic and it just depends on the conditions. Those can be from your birth or before your birth. Like if you have a genetic mutation that inhibits brain developement, it will make it harder to grasp these concepts and / or meditate.
> I have never come across a Buddhist source saying that some people are inherently more advantaged than others.
That's essentially the entirety of the Buddha's teachings on karma. I haven't the time to look for sources right now, but I'm pretty sure the close disciples of the Buddha - who all had distinct and extraordinary abilities, either feats of memory or meditation - were explained to have those abilities due to intense work in past lives. Indeed, the Buddha himself didn't chance upon his enlightenment - he made a vow to do it thousands or millions of lifetimes prior, and worked towards it life by life until he was able to achieve it.
They could have not stated hours of psychedelic drug usage to add on to that. Drugs were mentioned several times while mentioning the fda decided against mdma therapy.
I find it odd both meditation retreats they left early and very early. Possibly it was a bad sensation. Then they decided against continuing to practice regularly.
The words part sounds more like a drug induced trip.
exactly. I was a decade skilled in Vipassana and thought I could do the jhanas in an afternoon. took me two years. This guy is talking baloney if he says 20 hours and he nailed them. but this is normal in todays culture of instant gratification. people like to claim expertise while selling dog sheet dressed up as cat sheet.
I was ten years into Vipassana before trying the Jhanas and found them challenging. two years practising, I eventually got them. I found leigh brasingtons stuff very useful on it, though I think he was born with the "concentration" ability somewhat, while others like me have to struggle harder to get there. https://www.leighb.com/sitemap.htm
Oh spirituality. The only thing that I spent years of life trying to understand and ended up realizing that there's nothing to understand. It sounds corny and cliche but there's no other way I can put it.
I have/had meditated for almost 5 years of my life for almost 2 hours a day(unless I am traveling/or sick etc), so I think I am experienced enough to help beginner meditators. Also being from a Sanskrit-derived-language speaking country, I can read Pali and Sanskrit texts without translation.(Being from a SA country doesn't mean anyone can do that obviously. My family was more religious than others I guess). I am not beating my own drums but I have to put in some credibility to be taken seriously on the Internet. I really have no other credibility to put forward than this so please take my advice with a grain of salt because I am not an enlightened man like the religious scripts depict.
If you are a beginner, forget Jhanas and these tricks. They are just there to confuse you more. The wanting of stages of Jhanas are actually a hindrance. Buddha has warned about it. But his warning has been treated like a footnote. But in modern context, the warning should be the introduction. Because people can rarely deal with any discomfort these days. They've read the Jhanas, they want it now. I am almost 45% sure we will see a AI for Jhanas in the next 50 years.
Anyways, here's my advice for beginners:
When you start meditation, sooner or later, maybe even after a day or two, you'll eventually feel a state of peace. It is bound to happen, you will just have to take words of countless meditation literature and gurus and see for yourself. And the peace will be short-lived. Then, you will want to extend this peace. You've read about the Jhanas, the bliss, the peace, the oneness, and all. But it's not working for you right? Because you have been fooled again.
Previously, you were chasing for drugs/media/TikTok/girls/whatever or some other forms of pleasure/happiness and now you are chasing for the bliss, the peace, whatever the texts say or you've been told. It's the same thing. You are still chasing, you are still desiring. The object of desire is "Jhanas" now but it's still a desire and in desiring there is going to be mental conflict and hopelessness and feeling of losing because obviously you desire only the things you don't have.
The best advice I would give to a beginner meditator, is to be interested. Become interested in the process of meditation, forget the happiness, the results. Oh spoiler alert, you will actually feel like you are being more sadder after you started meditating. You will feel like you are noticing more problems, more issues with the society/beings etc. You aren't becoming sadder or the world is not sadder, you are noticing the sadness that was always there. Let it ride, enjoy the process. Don't treat meditation like a chore like I did. Be really interested. You have to be interested because it's a lifetime work. Your brain is neuroplastic so it's been addicted to patterns and habits from your birth to now. Don't expect to change them in a single meditation session. It's okay to meditate for 5 minutes a day and 2 hours the next day or miss it for weeks. Do it when you feel like it and when you are genuinely interested and curious, you'll just come back to it more and more without needing to force yourself to discipline and hate the word "meditation" in the process. Unless you are genuinely interested you will never surrender to meditation and unless you let go, you will never allow "Jhanas" to appear, because remember everything appears in emptiness.
I've tried to start meditating a couple of times in my life but every time after a couple of days instead of being introduced to gradual calm/bliss/joy/whatever I get met with an existential dread, sadness, anxiety, melancholy etc. I guess am naturally predisposed to those as well, much more than 'happy' feelings. I had to then take a week or even more to recover. I feel like you need to have your shit together so to speak before you try meditating or it might uncover some suppressed trauma or whatever it is. I must say though I am way more 'aware' of my body and emotions more than before, but the problem is they might not be pleasant. It is okay when the feeling is transitory but an existential dread which lasts for days or weeks feels impossible to shake off, it consumes your whole life. One day I hope to be able to swing the pendulum in the other way.
I believe that half of meditation is letting your self dredge up all the nasty stuff and watching it happen, the other half is cultivating an outlook that's okay with or even happy with those things coming up. It's literally practice, for remaining stable when bad things happen "off the mat", and to be able to narrow in and concentrate on the grain of calm/bliss/joy in every moment. These elevated jhana states can be a healthy part of that, but they take work to get to.
if you're going to actually try to do it and not just try to McMindfulness your way out, it's dangerous to go in to this unprepared, IMO. early in my meditation experience I went a bit too deep on this just by practicing insight a few hours a day on one of the apps and was anxious and emotionally unbalanced for months.
Finding a meditation teacher or practice community may help, too, it continues to help for me, but it's one of those things you gotta be ready to keep going back to
To share my own experience, I first tried meditating seriously in the context of a 9-day retreat and the first 4-5 days were as you described. Anxiety, melancholy, boredom, frustration, then a period of emotional catharsis and much more enjoyable meditation after that. I think it really depends on how much shit you're repressing.
Because the purpose of meditation is not to make you happy, it is to help you understand the Satya/Truth to help you see beyond the Maya/Illusion and lead you towards Moksha/Liberation (from Suffering/Dukkha if you are Buddhist, from Punarjanam/Reincarnation if you are Hindu). Of course, if you don't believe in any of that, then it is useless for you. Truth is supposed to make you sad, otherwise everyone will be looking for it.
Westerners just turn everything into a commercial product, look in this very thread -- some people felt a bit of relaxation and decided that they are now enlightened souls who have figured out the real deal without having to deal with the dirty Brown-skinned spirituality.
When you practice meditation for some months (for some, a few weeks or years), you gain a piercing insight into the nature of reality, and you might find the reality much more darker and sadder than you previously thought.
But meditation will also teach you that these don't matter.
Couple that with the personal cathartic experience of your forcefully subdued gloom, sadness, worries, etc. resurfacing and making you more afraid/anxious. This happens after some days/one-two weeks.
But meditation teaches you to overcome them. After years, your sense of self will cease.
These are not trivial things, so you will do better having a learned, practicing guru and/or solid base in the Philosophy.
The issue isn’t with the approach. The issue is with the limitations of language.
I did a vipassana course a few years ago and have been meditating semi-regularly ever since. I’ve been through a few difficult times with my family since then (not materially, but emotionally). In those difficult times, my most deep traumas were triggered - sadness, rage, frustration, anxiety all came rushing out.
But because of the meditative practices, I had learned to “witness” these emotions rather than be completely consumed by then. In the meditative practices I follow, I’ve learned to completely sense my body and the result is that my attention has moved away from my thoughts (which are the source of most of our suffering) to bodily sensations. These resulted in situations which are something like, “Oh I’m feeling a lot of rage and sadness. My chest is feeling an intense, almost painful sensation. My breathing is heavy and fast.” Whereas normally I’d have thought, “I’M GOING TO RIP THIS F**ERS HEAD OFF!!”.
And guess what, when the power of the emotion is “seen” in this way… I began to enjoy it. Enjoying my sadness and anger.
EDIT: well these days, I realise I’ve been chasing that state ever since :) and now my challenge is to let go. I’ve certainly become a bit rusty since then, but I don’t give myself enough credit for how far I’ve come. The journey never ends! I guess one just takes life as it comes :))
> So I'll start to not enjoy myself by becoming sadder, but I just need to enjoy it?
Yes. I do enjoy sadness. Once you worked your way to enjoy it, it becomes cleansing in itself. It is not inherently unjoyful, it is that you are attributing lack of joy to it.
This is basically what "inner child work" is doing, or "demon feeding", to stay closer to buddhistic practices.
See also, for example, the "8 C's and 5 P's of Internal Family Systems", https://www.therapywithalessio.com/articles/self-in-ifs-ther... You can feel all of them (calm, curious, compassionate, connected, confident etc), AND anything else at the same time (sadness, overwhelm, fear, anger, etc).
> I am almost 45% sure we will see a AI for Jhanas in the next 50 years.
The Atlantic article on this Jhourney company says "according to its founders... the combination of artificial intelligence and EEG recordings of the brain will give novice meditators bliss on demand."
So we're already there! Unless you meant an AI that actually works, in which case I have no idea.
I love your advice for beginners (last 3 paragraphs of your comment). It definitely rings true that the attainment of desirelessness can become a desire in itself, just another dragon to chase.
I like your comment so much I was tempted to share it with my FB friends. Would you be ok with that? No worries if not. If so, would you like to be mentioned by your username?
Sorry if this is not an appropriate thing to comment here. I would have messaged you privately but HN doesn't seem to provide a way to do that, and I don't see an email address for you. Cheers
This is solid advice. Don't desire anything from the process of meditation. Just do it. Some worldly benefits will arise, and you shouldn’t chase them either.
Is "jhana" a separate word or just a alternate spelling (if I may, an incorrect one) for "dhyana" which means mental focus / meditation?
(I am referring to the Sanskrit word which is also the root for many indian language words that mean the same -- dhyaan in Hindi, or dhyaanam in Telugu)
As mentioned, they're the same. Although "dhyana" can be translated as "meditation", it should be pointed out that at least in the yoga tradition, it refers to a specific, deeply focused state of one pointedness, like jhana, rather than being the act of performing a meditation technique itself - which is referred to as "dharana", I believe. So practicing "dharana" leads to "dhyana", in much the same way as particular techniques of concentration lead to "jhana".
They are the same, but in a different language. Jhana is Pāli, Dhyana is Sanskrit. Pāli ist the language of the oldest collection of discourses of the Buddha, on which Theravada buddhism is based. Sanskrit appeared later and is often used in Mahayana traditions.
As far as I know both Pāli and Sanskrit are artificially created languages, by merging various Indian dialects of the time, for the purpose of communicating spiritual/religious teachings across ethnic boundaries.
> Sanskrit appeared later and is often used in Mahayana traditions.
While Sanskrit was used in later Buddhist traditions, the term "dhyana" in Sanskrit predates the Buddha, as it was used in the Vedas, and a lot of Pali does seem to derive from Sanskrit (or at least, other local languages that were influenced by Sanskrit).
Now, "modern" Sanskrit and "vedic" Sanskrit can be considered two things (like English and Old English), but many of the terms used are the same, hence its influence on Pali that compare to modern Sanskrit terms.
I got skeptical when I saw that. These practices are supposed to, from my current understanding, help you see reality clearly by making you more aware of impermanence, dhukka, and not-self.
I don't mind participating or even paying for a retreat, but it seems like they're trying to sell the positive aspects of it too much like it's some spiritual drug. There are quotes on there making comparisons to doing these "jhanna" practices instead of eating another slice of cake?
"Prior to attempting the jhanas, I’d guess that I had maybe 30 hours of lifetime meditation experience, scattered over a decade or more: in other words, not much. But with just over 20 hours of practice, I progressed through all nine jhanic states."
Okay, after that passage I stopped reading, as the author clearly doesn't know what they are talking about. The truth is, people devote their entirely lives living as monastics and still not reach Jhanas (although there are many other benefits, and the life of a monk/nun does take you closer to getting there). In fact, many respectable monks teach that Jhanas are pretty much the end of the Path. From there it is just a small step left to final Liberation.
Yes, I am aware of "Jhana lite", as taught by some lay teachers. But those are certainly not the real thing. Real Jhanas are incredibly profound and powerful states that are worth exploring and understanding, devoting a life to, even. But please get your information from a reputable sources (eg. Ajahn Brahm certainly knows what he's talking about). Not a random person on the internet with "just over 20 hours of practice".
A question for those familiar with jhanas. How would physical discomfort affect your ability to meditate? What if you had a headache? What if you had brainfog because of lack of sleep?
> How would physical discomfort affect your ability to meditate
It doesn't really. Unless you're in total agony, it's just another thing in the stew. Jon-Kabat Zinn might be of some interest. IIRC, much of the work he was doing around Full Catastrophe Living had to do with pain management.
> What if you had brainfog because of lack of sleep?
You'll probably fall asleep. Which is okay because you needed it.
It is great people are discovering that there is a happiness within that is not dependent on getting things or things being a certain way and you can increase and cultivate wholesome states that are outside the sensory world. But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body. They are rather like a boat and its wake... the wake is the feelings but the boat is something else - they are the wholesome states. We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable. For instance with metta the boat would be the intention "may I be happy" the feelings are the by-product or wake. Jhana is proper like a boat that suddenly unexpectedly hits the shore... It rocks and blows the mind (and as the mind contains model of the world - it feels like the world shook a bit then froze). A good "geeks guide" is "Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond" written by someone who finished a physics degree at cambridge and spent 9 years with Ajahn Chah.
If we instead mistake something else for "jhana" like some positive feels, we're going to be stuck cultivating a local maxima. It's not to say the practice is wrong, it's actually quite good. It's just not jhana. We should listen to the professional community just like we listen to the professionals of physics in academia, instead of some posts from people on the internet that have done a few 30 day retreats.
But please do not call it jhana and have some humility ... these terms are central to some of the okdest institutions in the world and theres a professional community in the dharmic traditions who literally do this full time all over asia.
If someone wants to hear a competent speaker who has done the necessary time and training at those institutions and is also trained in the conventional university system, someone like Ajahn Brahm (Theoretical Physics Cambridge) Beth Upton (Economics Cambridge) or Shalia Catherine or Sayadaw U Jagara