🔗📝 notes on passadhi (pacification) and force

 

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🔗📝 notes on passadhi (pacification) and force

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Wouldn't it be nice if jhana was so easy to ascertain as the health bar meters on a video game? 

Do you have enough piti, enough sukha, enough ekaggata to qualify as jhana? 

Is it too much piti, too much vitakka and vicara to disqualify you from first jhana? 

Piti drops in in 3rd jhana, sukha drops out in 4th, so how do you really know if you're in 2nd, 3rd, 4th when there's a subtle sensation of pleasant comfort but it pervades every cell in your body?

I'm going to let you in on a secret. 

Use the force. 

I'm playing with words referring to a popular modern mythical epic story, but what I'm referring to is as  tangible as a mosquito biting you, the difference in force sensation in your body between holding a 5lb weight, 4lb weight, etc. The force difference between wearing a winter coat and not wearing one, the difference in force and pressure you can feel between wearing a tshirt and jeans versus walking around completely naked. The difference between internal force have having a full bladder and needing to pee, and what the force feels like after you pee. That's the force you're using, the force you should learn to become sensitive to, and the sensitivity training that's described in steps 3 and 4 of the 16 steps of breath meditation. 

All 4 jhanas have passadhi-sambojjhanga, and 'the force' is directly proportional to passadhi. 

Passaddhi, pacification, is deep relaxation. When the taiji grandmaster tells the student, "you're not relaxed", and the student objects, "I AM relaxed!",  what the teacher really means is the student does not have jhanic level of relaxation. If you're relaxed (passadhi) in the jhanic sense, you will feel the force. Not an abstract intellectual concept, but a tangible, physical force that drives a current of energy in the body. When you have blockages, what I call jhana constipation, the body will shake when the force pushes the current of energy, and the energy rebounds off the blockage. When all the blockages are cleared, then the force drives the current and flows freely. In first and second jhana, this will feel hydraulic, like heat and water flowing everywhere. In 3rd jhana, the current feels like a dam filled up and saturated, and you no longer have the sensation of a fire hydrant hose vibrating and flowing inside, but you still feel force pushing on the parts of your body, usually the extremities like the skin, fingers, toes, where the energy channels are the slowest to completely open up. 

Conclusion: If you have genuine passadhi (pacification, relaxation), you will feel a tangible force

If you have genuine passadhi (pacification, relaxation), you will feel a tangible force pushing a current of energy (can be heat, fluid, electricity, or just visible light that gets brighter as your jhana battery is more fully charged).

If you don't feel the force, you're not as relaxed as you think, or you are in the jhana impotence state.

Even in jhana constipation state, you feel force pushing a current against your blockages. In jhana impotence state, this means you've expended too much of your PIE (precious internal energy) from too much indulgence in sensual pleasures (or even too much virtuous heavy thinking and studying of Dharma which is energy intensive). 

So the only way to end the jhana impotence state, is to keep noble silence and pure celibacy (even strong thoughts of lust can drain vast amounts of internal energy, for example reading/watching emotionally charged lust inducing romantic epic stories). 

This article is part of a series:

🔗📝 notes on passadhi (pacification) and force

http://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2021/10/notes-on-passadhi-pacification-and-force.html