first jhāna is easy. all you need to do is relax (passaddhi/pacification)

	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 bully The 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.

 

How to cure jhāna constipation

Be like water 🌊

from 🌊 Passaddhi (Pacification) to first jhāna

How to pacify the body (kāya passaddhi).Do get first jhāna, you really only have to do one thing.5🌊 pacification awakening factor, the 5th factor that precedes the samādhi (i.e. 4 jhānas) of 6🌄.The pacification factor has two components, a mental (citta) and (kāya) physical part.How do you completely relax?If you were standing up, and you decided to completely relax, you'd collapse on the floor like a rag doll, urinate on yourself and fall asleep.Everyone knows how to completely relax, everyone can sleep.So first jhana is really just a balancing act between maintaining the mind on the appropriate ☸Dharma meditation subject using S&S🐘💭, and letting the body fall asleep while maintaining an awake posture, such as standing quietly, or cross leg sitting on the floor.The tough part of first jhana really is the mental side, how to take up and genuinely enjoy skillful ☸Dharma meditation subjects and abandon the 5niv⛅ hindrances.V&V💭 has a section on first jhana that explores this comprehensively and in detail.So assuming everyone is able to take care of the mental side of things for a few seconds at least, and temporarily suspend 5niv⛅ for a few seconds, and you all know how to relax the body fully and let it fall asleep, what's keeping you from experiencing the bliss of first jhana immediately?Absolutely nothing. If you follow the simple instructions up to this point, there are only 4 possibilities:1. You'll experience the sukha pleasure (physical, can even be intensely euphoric or orgasmic, or just mild pleasure) of first jhana. Depends on how full your jhana battery is charged.2. You'll feel jhana constipation (Be like water 🌊), a condition where you feel pressure and forces of the body pushing on some knot, blockage, or rough patches in your body, things that are blocking the free flow of energy in the many interconnected loops of energy in your body.3. You don't feel 1 or 2. If this is the case, it's because your jhana battery isn't sufficiently charged. That is, you're a net energy waster. You spend more money than you make. You're not getting enough sleep, noble silence, and meditation, and you're wasting too much of your precious internal energy (PIE) on the 5niv⛅, usually for most people this would be sex, overeating, drugs, partying, etc. To charge your battery, stay celibate (in body and mind), at least for a good period of time like 100 days, and cease the activities that drain your PIE. If you can keep 5 and 8 precepts, don't have any unusual health problems, I guarantee after 100 days your battery is going to be super charged and you will feel (1) sukha of first jhana, or (2) jhana constipation.4. In the process of melting jhana constipation blockages (months, years), parts of your body will feel sukha from (1), other parts of the body will feel the discomfort of jhana constipation (2).How long does it take to cure jhana constipation?Depends on your age, health, preexisting conditions, etc.As a general guideline, I'd say that if you keep 5 precepts well, meditate 2 hours a day, within 3 months to 1 year you should be able to do low to medium quality of first jhana.If you can keep 8 precepts well, and meditate 4 hours a day, I'd say anywhere from 1-5 years you can do competent 2nd or 3rd jhana.First jhana is actually very easy to do. The reason most people don't get it, is:1. They don't make the time committment and keep the precepts every day. See 4️🦍 “foot in the door” section for powerful method to help you develop kusala habits that will result in jhana.2. They commit the time for a while, then because jhana constipation feels uncomfortable, even painful, they give up after some time. See ☯🦍, especially 🏃👨‍🍳🥧 and 🧘🐢 for exercises than can greatly accelerate the melting of jhana constipation.3. They believe the wrong re-definition of jhana propaganda of VRJ🐍 or Jabrama🤡-jhana, which is a different meditation system entirely, which Vism. estimates "only 1 in a million can attain first jhana".But in the EBT, first jhana j1🌘 is fairly easy to do, the Buddha designed it such that he expects even newly ordained novices to be able to do at least first jhana.



how gradual and accessible first jhāna is

🔗MN 45 and MN 36, how gradual 1st jhana is
MN 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.
…

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.