I got a few complaints about my recent article:2 super powerful tools to help you get (and improve!) your jhana: 1) foot in the door and 2) bullying the bullyThe complaint was that, those two tips weren't that helpful and didn't actually help with attaining first jhana. So here is another article to fill in some of the gaps. Basically, if you follow the simple instructions in the suttas, first jhana is really easy, but for the vast majority of the people, what they will experience instead of the bliss of first jhana, is instead jhana constipation. Here is the billion dollar insight I'm sharing with you now: Because you think jhana constipation is not first jhana. Actually it is! You just have to be wise and patient enough to put in your daily practice until the energy blockages melt. Most people will get it in piece meal, gradually over months. Parts of your body will feel bliss, and then more and more as various blockages melt. But the whole time, you were doing the same simple thing. Pacify the mind (supress the 5 hindrances), pacify the body, allowing the force and heat of your jhana battery to circulate the PIE (precious internal energy) until all the blockages melt. When there is blockage, it feels like constipation. When blockage is melted, then it feels like the bliss of jhana (AN 5.28), but you were doing the same thing the whole time. Don't make the mistake thinking you don't have the merits, or doubt that you're doing the correct method. Just about every meditation problem I had no teacher was able to help me with (I had access to the greatest meditation teachers in the world), because in hindsight I was doing the right thing - relaxing completely, it just took a few years for various blockages to melt. My journey to 2nd jhana would have been shortened many years if I knew then what I know now, because I wouldn't have doubts about my practice and method (doubt leads to physical and mental tension). And that's why the previous article is a powerful tool. It's helping you establish a daily and continuous skillful habit that will patiently wait out the jhana constipation unclogging process. |
from 🌊 Passaddhi (Pacification) to first jhāna
how gradual and accessible first jhāna is
🔗MN 45 and MN 36, how gradual 1st jhana isMN 45 and MN 36. VRJ🐍 and Jabrama🤡-jhana (ajahn brahm redefined jhana doesn't fit here)
MN 45 is a good sutta to get a holistic sense of how ordinary, gradual, and easily accessible first jhana was designed to be. The contrast between wrong pleasure, the 5 strings of sensuality, and four jhanas, the right kind of pleasure, is what first jhana formula's 'vivicceva kamehi' is referencing.
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don't give up on jhāna, 🔗until you drink from the sutta cup.
hint: try looking up the definition of 'gradual'. It doesn't mean 'abrupt', or 'random'. If a samadhi path is gradual, 4th jhana should have a meaningful distinction from 1st jhana.
It's not samatha kungfu the buddha is emphasizing for first jhana, it's AN 5.51: freedom from 5niv⛅ hindrances is an uttari manussa dhamma, 🔗the real essence of first jhāna.
If you plug in vitakka 'placing the mind' as vaci-sankhara, you break the fidelity of the oral tradition and you get
🔗B. Sujato mumbling incoherently.
🔗proof: V&V are vaci sankhara
First jhana is not about kasina staring and samatha kung fu!
It's about learning how to skillfully use Dhamma vitakka, first jhana thinking to lubricate the mind with spiritually inspiring and relevant Dharma instructions to carry out.
first jhāna is easier than you think
don't give up on jhāna, 🔗until you drink from the sutta cup.AN 5.176 the Buddha and Sariputta tells 500 lay people to work on first and second jhana. Does that sound like something only 1 in a million can people can do?
AN 5.179 same 500 lay people with first jhana from AN 5.176 attain stream entry.
DN 18: 3 ways of using vitakka to attain first jhana. And over 2.4 million lay followers attain stream entry. Does this sound like 'only 1 in a million' can attain first jhana as vism. claims?
MN 68: 🔗MN 68 case study on how easy and accessible first jhana is for newly ordained.
MA 77: agama parallel to MN 68, matches closely. Again, notice how it's expected for newly ordained to get first jhana if they can choose delighting in holy life over 5niv⛅. Also, notice importance of using inspiring ☸Dharma vitakka thoughts to launch 7sb☀️ sequence.
SN 47.4 newly ordained, arahants, and all skill levels in between do the same 4sp🐘 with 4j🌕 quality of samadhi (first jhana or better!) simultaneously.
🔗AN 1 micro first jhana, 37 of them
V&V💭🔗simile of bird corrupted by vism.
>>AN 5.179 same 500 lay people with first jhana from AN 5.176 attain stream entry.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to "the four pleasureful meditations in the present life belonging to the higher mind that they get when they want, without trouble or difficulty," what precisely is the "noble disciple’s ethical conduct is loved by the noble ones, unbroken, unflawed, unblemished, untainted, liberating, praised by sensible people, not mistaken, and leading to undistractible-lucidity"? I don't think it's the five precepts as they were just mentioned. (Although this is a stock phrase which may have been inserted here wholesale irrespective of context.)
I don't think it's the 5 precepts either. What are you driving at?
DeleteI'm not driving at anything. I just have always wondered what "ethical conduct loved by the noble ones" could be other than 5- or 8-precepts, but I draw a blank. You (and your friend) usually have a good handle on what "lifestyle" should surround a successful meditation practice, so I thought you might have some insight. Maybe you also draw a blank?
DeleteAN 6.10 gives a little more context on teh relationship between the jhanas (higher mind) and the 6 recollections. sila is the 4th of the 6 recollections, and also closely related to the viriya and piti in the 7sb sequence. Pamojja and piti arise because viriya is conducted with sila.
DeleteI think the sila-khanda portion of noble eightfold path (right speech, action, livelihood) would cover the "ethical conduct loved by the noble ones" sufficiently. 5 precepts is a subset of that.
Food for thought. Thank you.
ReplyDelete