The Jhāna passaddhi 'force' equation, and the simile of Ajahn Brahm and the golden goose

Simile of the golden goose 

People tend to be scared of math, so I'll start off with an intuitive simile to illustrate the purpose of the 'force' equation.

Suppose you're lucky enough to follow a correct EBT interpretation of jhana and  satipatthana ("mindfulness meditation").

Then you know that sati ("mindful" of relevant Dharma to apply every moment) and jhana are not mutually exclusive practices, as LBT Theravada wrongly promulgates, but that they are in fact completely integrated, aspects of  the same moment to moment meditation you should be doing all day, every day 24/7.  Sati should always be active. You're in grave danger whenever sati is not active. 

The 4 jhanas are 4 quality levels of sati.  If you can do jhana, but do sati every moment without applying your passaddhi (pacification) and jhana skill, it's beyond foolish. 

If you are skilled in Jhana, it's like you own a smart and loyal companion who's always with you, laying golden eggs continuously, like every minute or so. All you have to do, if you have any common sense, is collect the eggs and store them in your treasure chest of accumulated spiritual capital (the currency/money you need to realize arahantship and higher knowledges).  

To do sati all the time, without doing jhana quality of samadhi along with that sati, would be like not collecting all those free golden eggs your friend is producing every minute. That would be foolish wouldn't it? 

Simile of what LBT Theravada, Visuddhimagga and Ajahn Brahm do to that golden goose

Since they promulgate a system of jhana that is mutually exclusive from sati practice, it prevents people from even trying to accumulate spiritual wealth all day, in all 4 postures of activity. They don't even know that you can do partial jhana and passaddhi while you do sati every moment. 

The 4 jhanas are 4 quality levels of sati.  If you can do jhana, but do sati every moment without applying your passaddhi (pacification) and jhana skill, it's beyond foolish. But this is exactly what Vism. and Ajahn Brahm are telling you to do, by redefining jhana into a disembodied frozen stupor that in practice can only be done in a sitting posture under intensive silent retreat conditions.

Is that corrupted redefinition of jhana what you really want to do, or would you rather follow a correct EBT interpretation of jhana and sati, which are done simultaneously all the time, all day? You should  always be charging your jhana battery, always baking PIE, always collecting those golden eggs in all 4 postures in all activities. 

The size of the eggs laid every minute varies according to the 'force' equation. 

The Jhāna passaddhi 'force' equation

Loaded Zen: Baking PIE, getting rich by maximizing the zen coefficient every moment

PIE = ∫ zen × zc × activity × ac 

from t = 0 (time of birth) to t = time of death

zen [1,4] = first jhana to fourth jhana, your baseline samadhi skill level, i.e. when you flip the switch which zen are you typically in. Ordinary person below zen 1, let's call 0.5.

zc [0.0,1.0] = zen coefficient 

activity [-∞️, +∞️]:

+∞️ positive activity like noble silence + 4sp satipatthana + 4bv brahmavihara, 

-∞️ negative activity based on 5niv hindrances mostly kāma sensuality based that drain exorbitant amounts of vital internal energy.

ac = activity coefficient = force × current × pacification  ÷ tension

tension [0,+∞️]: you can see from equation having zero tension will make your activity coefficient an infinite number, while having maximum tension will drag your ac score to zero, and your moment to moment PIE yield to zero.

Problems with this equation: 

1. Many of the variables are not independent

2. There really should be exponential growth expressed somewhere

simile: golden goose always with you. The higher your zen coefficient and activity coefficient, the bigger the golden egg he lays, every minute. Golden egg filled with PIE. 

Related

🔗📝 notes on passadhi (pacification) and force