Help me understand rapture

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Patrice
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Help me understand rapture

Post by Patrice »

I'm trying to better understand the 5th contemplation of the anapanasati: Rapture. Could someone help me understand what it is exactly, how to identify it when it happens?

Thank you
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ryanM
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by ryanM »

The rapture is when Jesus Christ returns to remove the church (all believers in Christ) from the earth. Believers who have died will have their bodies resurrected and, along with believers who are still living, will meet the Lord in the air. This will all occur in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye.
So the prescription is about contemplating going up to heaven with Jesus. You'll identify when it happens because you'll either be in heaven or stuck on earth... Yikes!

Ok, Ok, probably not what you're talking about considering this is a Buddhist forum. Rapture is commonly talked about in tandem with meditation i.e. jhana/samadhi. Contemplating it would be seeing anicca, dukkha, anatta. Noticing its change in intensity, how it came about (certainly not by the will), how it ended. yadda yadda yadda. I don't think you'll be able to easily mistake rapture. "I know it when I see it."
sabbe dhammā nālaṃ abhinivesāya

"nothing whatsoever should be clung to"
SarathW
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by SarathW »

pīti: rapture, enthusiasm (rendered also by joy, happiness); interest it is one of the mental factors or concomitants (cetasika) and belongs to the group of mental formations (saṅkhāra-kkhandha). As, in Sutta texts, it is often linked in a compound word. with 'gladness' (pāmojja) or 'happiness' (sukha), some Western translations have wrongly taken it as a synonym of these two terms. Pīti, however, is not a feeling or a sensation, and hence does not belong to the feeling-group (vedanā-kkhandha), but may be described psychologically as 'joyful interest'. As such it may be associated with wholesome as well as with unwholesome and neutral states of consciousness.

A high degree of rapture is characteristic of certain stages in meditative concentration, in insight practice (vipassanā) as well as in the first two absorptions (jhāna, q.v.). In the latter it appears as one of the factors of absorption (jhānaṅga; s. jhāna) and is strongest in the 2nd absorption. Five degrees of intensity in meditative rapture are described in Vis.M. IV. 94ff. It is one of the factors of enlightenment (bojjhaṅga, q.v.).


https://www.budsas.org/ebud/bud-dict/dic3_p.htm
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SarathW
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by SarathW »

Fivefold classification
As the meditator experiences tranquillity (samatha), one of five kinds of physical pleasure (piti) will arise. These are:

Weak rapture only causes piloerection.
Short rapture evocates some thunder "from time to time".
Going down rapture explodes inside the body, like waves.
Exalting rapture "makes the body jump to the sky".
Fulfilling rapture seems to be a huge flood of a mountain stream.
Note only the last two are considered specifically piti. The first four are just a preparation for the last one, which is the jhanic factor.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%ABti
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SarathW
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by SarathW »

The important thing is to understand is Piti is mental, not bodily.
When you do not have questioning and evaluation (Vitakka , Vicara) in your mind, you experience rapture.
In this mental state, you do not have anger in your mind.
For example, When I saw the Niagara fall for the first time I experienced rapture.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
paul
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by paul »

Patrice wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 7:01 pm I'm trying to better understand the 5th contemplation of the anapanasati: Rapture.
“The second tetrad: “[5] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.’ [6] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.’ [7] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.’ [8] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.’”


Firstly, it is better to place the tetrads of the Anapanasati sutta into the context of the Satipatthana sutta. The second tetrad which includes steps 5-8, is directly equivalent to the second foundation, mindfulness of feeling. Step 6 refers to pleasure not of the flesh, which is definitely a feeling, and a pivotal one, since it replaces feelings of sensuality and signifies an important step on the path, as without experiencing pleasure not of flesh, the practitioner cannot overcome sensuality entirely:

“Even though a disciple of the noble ones has clearly seen as it has come to be with right discernment that sensuality is of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks, still—if he has not attained a rapture & pleasure apart from sensuality, apart from unskillful qualities, or something more peaceful than that—he can be tempted by sensuality. But when he has clearly seen as it has come to be with right discernment that sensuality is of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks, and he has attained a rapture & pleasure apart from sensuality, apart from unskillful qualities, or something more peaceful than that, he cannot be tempted by sensuality.” — MN 14— “Right Mindfulness”, Thanissaro Bikkhu.

"Rapture denotes a mental factor belonging to the fourth of the five aggregates into which Buddhism classifies the psycho-physical organism, namely, the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakkhandha). It is a conative rather than affective phenomenon, which fuses zestful interest with a sense of joyous delight. Happiness, on the other hand, is a purely hedonic factor belonging to the second aggregate, the aggregate of feelings (vedanakkhandha)."---"Transcendental Dependent Arising", Bikkhu Bodhi.
Last edited by paul on Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SarathW
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by SarathW »

The second tetrad which includes steps 5-8, is equivalent to the second foundation, mindfulness of feeling.
Thanks Paul.
Can these be related to four Jhana?
If then how?
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DooDoot
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by DooDoot »

Patrice wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 7:01 pm I'm trying to better understand the 5th contemplation of the anapanasati: Rapture. Could someone help me understand what it is exactly, how to identify it when it happens?
Hi Patrice

The mind will definitely know when it happens but it probably won't happen if the mind is hoping for or expecting it to happen. It happens from calmness & calmness happens when the mind stays in the present moment; fully with & knowing each single in-breath & out-breath, as they happen.

With metta
There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand.

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Spiny Norman
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by Spiny Norman »

SarathW wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:53 pm The important thing is to understand is Piti is mental, not bodily.
I thought it was the other way round?
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SarathW
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by SarathW »

I thought it was the other way round?
Yes, it is very difficult to differentiate between the body and the mind.
If you take my example when I saw the Nigra fall for the first time it sent goose bumps on me.
I was exhilarated. (Piti)
But after seen it few days I just calm down sit beside the waterfall with happiness (Suka)
I would say that the happiness in the mind is Piti and the ease in the body as a Suka.
Both Piti and Suka are mental phenomena.

==========

Five Kinds:
bodily agreeable feeling — kaayikaa sukhaa vedanaa (sukha)
bodily disagreeable feeling — kaayikaa dukkhaa vedanaa (dukkha)
mentally agreeable feeling — cetasikaa sukhaa vedanaa (somanassa)
mentally disagreeable feeling — cetasikaa dukkhaa vedanaa (domanassa)
indifferent or neutral feeling — adukkha-m-asukhaa vedanaa (upekkhaa)

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/aut ... el322.html
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paul
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by paul »

Separating the division between body and mind is an important insight contemplation. According to the Vism. most mental activity begins with the body. This is supported by the foundations of mindfulness, where the first foundation is treated in the teaching as the basic one, its exercises more extensively described in the Satipatthana sutta. The suttas then classify the experiential level of the dhamma as only being definitively reached when it is experienced 'in the body'. If the four foundations are simplified into three, body, feelings and mind, then feelings can be seen as the intermediary between body and mind. This is indicated in the second tetrad of the Anapanasati sutta in step 7:

“The second tetrad: “[5] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.’ [6] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.’ [7] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.’ [8] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.’”.

“Step 7 builds naturally on steps 5 and 6 because only when you have gained experience in inducing states of rapture and pleasure, and in observing the role of perception in conjunction with these states, can you see clearly the way their presence and absence can fabricate the state of your mind.”—“Right Mindfulness” ,Thanissaro.

As stated here, the transition between feelings and mind is perception, and reveals the superimposition of the five groups of existence onto the four foundations of mindfulness. In the khandhas, the corporality group is defined broadly as "Whatever there exists of corporal things...one's own or external", and "the four primary elements and corporality depending thereon", and this can be applied to the meaning of 'body' in the first foundation of mindfulness.

Note: There is a tendency in the computer generation to avoid experiences in the body, such as the physical confrontation with impermanence, and to focus on mind. No experiential level of the dhamma can be expected resulting from this severance and practitioners must strive to accept mindfulness of the body and the implementation of dhamma in (external) daily life.
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Alīno
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Re: Help me understand rapture

Post by Alīno »

Piti is like a wave of pleasure that passes through your mind, its power depends on concentration power, this wave will leave a state of pleasure and well being behind (like a wave that hit the beach and leave bubbles behind it, or burst of wind that leave a dust behind). This well being and pleasure will be manifest as a smile on your face or/and as a bodily pleasent feeling in your whole body with no ommiting parts, percived like 'radiance' or 'duck skin' or 'like a color movents on the soap bubble' or other...
Ajahn Nanadassano (before ordaining) : Venerable Ajahn, what is the bigest error that buddhist do in their practice?
Ajahn Jayasaro : They stop practicing ...
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