Leigh Brasington's Interpretations of the Jhanas

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
Babadhari
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Re: Leigh Brasington's Interpretations of the Jhanas

Post by Babadhari »

leigh brasington:
if you are craving a jhana, you've got sense desire and an unwholesome state of mind. You have to set those aside to be able to enter the jhana.........................................................................................................................
(here he gives instructions on developing access concentration and developing conditions for the first jhana)
don't go expecting anything. Expectations are the absolute worst things you can bring on a retreat. Simply do the meditation method. And when access concentration arises, recognize it, and shift your attention to a pleasant sensation. Don't try to do the jhanas. You can't. All you can do is pay attention to the object of meditation, and recognize when it's time to pay attention to another object.

http://www.leighb.com/jhana3.htm
Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion.
Aflame, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs ......

Seeing thus, the disciple of the Noble One grows disenchanted. SN 35.28
Kalama
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Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:35 pm

Re: Leigh Brasington's Interpretations of the Jhanas

Post by Kalama »

continue: (4)


Leigh:
'Ajahn Brahmavamso is a Theravadan Buddhist monk who lives in Western Australia. He studied extensively with Ajahn Chah in Thailand as well as in other places before settling in Australia. His definition of exactly what constituted a Jhana seems close to the depths indicated in the Visuddhimagga, but he says he teaches from the suttas and from his experience. His essays The Basic Method of Meditation and Travelogue to the four Jhanas outline his Jhana teaching.
(1. http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/articles/i ... ation.html
2. http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebmed042.htm )
The primary access method he teaches is Anapanasati, which he refers to as "experiencing the 'beautiful breath'." His main emphasis is about the attitude of not getting the 'doer' or 'craving' or 'will' involved. He emphasizes finding happiness and joy in stillness. His main teachings are now to 'make peace, be kind & be gentle' which are the right intentions of the Noble Eightfold Path. So no matter what method or object of meditation one uses, one has to make sure to have the 'right intentions' of it. His dharma talks here explain this in more detail.
unquote

I like Ajahn Brahm's tapes.. well, of the few I listened to (among those 334 available now, ) , not counting videos or articles. I recall humorous stories , nicely connected with his Dhamma talks, making it easier to pay attention than to many other speakers.

A few passages from above links:

'In order to know where your effort should be directed, you must have a clear understanding of the goal of meditation. The goal of this meditation is the beautiful silence, stillness and clarity of mind. If you can understand that goal then the place to apply your effort, the means to achieve the goal becomes very clear'.
'The effort is directed to letting go, to developing a mind that inclines to abandoning. One of the many simple but profound statements of the Lord Buddha is that "a meditator whose mind inclines to abandoning, easily achieves Samadhi". Such a meditator gains these states of inner bliss almost automatically.'


(Obviously those lucky ones with fewer attachments respectively identifications. We all know how tricky the mind operates to avoid non-activity , having always ' highly interesting ' comments available and if only about the issue of stillness.

S.N. XII,61 -translation .by Thanissaro Bhikkhu - brings it to the point:
"It would be better for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person to hold to the body composed of the four great elements, rather than the mind, as the self. Why is that? Because this body composed of the four great elements is seen standing for a year, two years, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred years or more. But what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. The instructed disciple of the noble ones, [however,] attends carefully & appropriately right there at the dependent co-arising: "'When this is, that is."'From the arising of this comes the arising of that." unquote extract

The nature of our day-by-day-mind is that of a monkey.. and very stubborn of a change.
Interesting is here the reference to the Law of Dependent Origination .
Ajahn Buddhadasa ,Suan Moke, is one of the few I keep in mind who emphasized the contemplation.
There are quite a number of people who can not imagine that inner silence is possible , it seems they assume that not-thinking involves the thought: not to think . Well , Abhidhamma offers grand possibilities in order to keep busy. )


Ajahn Brahm:
'You may go through the initial stages quickly if you wish, but be very careful if you so do. Sometimes, when you pass through the initial steps too quickly, you find the preparatory work has not been completed. It is like trying to build a town house on a very weak and rushed foundation. The structure goes up very quickly, but it comes down very quickly as well! So you are wise to spend a lot of time on the foundations, and on the `first storeys' as well, making the groundwork well done, strong and firm. Then when you proceed to the higher storey, the bliss states of meditation, they too are stable and firm.'
(I assume from Jhana 1 to Jhana 2 , volition in form of thought activity must have come to rest in order to inhabit the second storey.)
'The second stage of meditation in my scheme of things is where you have full continuous awareness of the breath. So the mind is not distracted at all, every moment it has the breath in mind and that state has been stabilised with continual attention until the breath is continually in mind, no distraction for many minutes on end. That's the second stage in this meditation. It coincides with the third stage in the Buddha's Anapanasati Sutta, where the meditator experiences whole body of breath, where the body here is just a word for the accumulation of all the parts of an inbreath, all the parts of an outbreath and the sequential awareness of these physical feelings. The next stage, the third stage in my scheme, the fourth stage in the Buddha's Anapanasati Sutta, is where, having attained that second stage and not letting it go, not letting go of the awareness of the breath one moment, one calms that object down, calms the object of the breath down.'


( when comparing with the usual definitions of the Jhanas , e.g. DN 2, in particular the similes the approach of Anapanasati seems to be quite different.)


'If you calm the physical feeling of breath down, the mental feeling of breath starts to arise -- the samadhi nimitta -- usually a light which appears in the mind. However, it can sometimes just appear to be a physical feeling. It can be a deep peacefulness; it can even be like a blackness. The actual description of it is very wide simply because the description is that which everyone adds on to a core experience, which is a mental experience. When it starts to arise you just haven't got the words to describe it. So what we add to it is usually how we understand it to ourselves. Darkness, peacefulness, profound stillness, emptiness, a beautiful light or whatever. Don't particularly worry about what type of nimitta it actually is.'

( mental feeling of breath starts to arise ..? hm ..more likely what mental formations 'translate' from the feeling -.I.M.H.O.
....about nimitta : perhaps best 'whatever' ? ;-) )


Ajahn Brahm:
''In fact the first jhana is quite wide. However, if it's a first jhana experience it has to have the five main features, the five main jhana factors. The second jhana is much narrower, much easier to find out whether this is where you've been. It's the same with the third and the fourth jhana, they get narrower still. The width of description for this experience, which you may offer, narrows down as you attain more profound depths of letting go.
With the first jhana, the Buddha gave it five factors. The main factors are the two which is piti-sukka. This is bliss. Sometimes, if you look in books about the meaning of these terms, they will try and split them into separate factors. They are separate things, but in the first couple of jhanas piti and sukka are so closely intertwined that you will not be able to distinguish one from the other and it's more helpful not to try, but to look at these two factors as just 'bliss' That's the most accurate description which most people can recognise: "This is bliss." The Buddha called it vivekaja piti-sukka, that particular type of bliss which is born from detachment, born from aloofness, born from seclusion. Viveka is the word for 'seclusion', 'aloofness', 'separateness' and it means 'separated from the world of the five senses'
'There are two other factors which confuse people again and again. They are the two terms 'vitakka' and 'vicira' -- which Bikkhu Bodhi in his Majima Nikaya translates as 'initial' and 'sustained' application of thought or 'initial' and 'applied' thought. However, it should be known and recognised, that thinking, as you normally perceive it, is not present in these jhanas at all. That which we call thought has completely subsided. What these two terms refer to is a last vestige of the movement of the mind which, if it was continued, would give rise to thinking. It is almost what you might call sub-verbal thought. It is a movement of the mind towards a meditation object. That's called vitakka. However it has to appear on a sub-verbal level, just a movement, just an intention, without the mind breaking into words and labels.'

( I disagree despite my very limited Jhana experience : vitakka appears to me as the arising of thought , thought conception ,i.e. bringing up a new topic which vicara follows up , adding associations in a way of discursive thinking , different to the a.m. monkey , missing direction in jumping)


to be continued
Kalama
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Re: Leigh Brasington's Interpretations of the Jhanas

Post by Kalama »

continue ( 5 ) with Ajahn Brahm , my comments in brackets ..no nit- picking intented , just what came into my mind :


'You should realize that you are much closer to Truth when you observe without commentary, when you experience just the silent awareness of the present moment.'

(How true and so difficult to sustain..)

'One of the beautiful ways of overcoming the inner commentary is to develop such refined present moment awareness, that you are watching every moment so closely that you simply do not have the time to comment about what has just happened. A thought is often an opinion on what has just happened, e.g. "That was good", "That was gross", "What was that?" All of these comments are about an experience that has just passed by. When you are noting, making a comment about an experience that has just passed, then you are not paying attention to the experience that has just arrived. You are dealing with old visitors and neglecting the new visitors coming now!'

(noting can be of advantage if it is used to confirm and get on with what comes next , respectively get back to the choosen focus )


'Sometimes it is through the inner commentary that we think we know the world. Actually, that inner speech does not know the world at all! It is the inner speech that weaves the delusions that cause suffering. It is the inner speech that causes us to be angry with those we make our enemies, and to have dangerous attachments to those we make our loved ones. Inner speech causes all of life's problems. It constructs fear and guilt. It creates anxiety and depression.'

(I don't think inner speech is the cause, but it happens due the process of Dependent Origination. Behind is volition , the kamma force /sankhara conditioned by ignorance/delusion.In practise one need to keep in mind , that feeling is conditioned by senses impression..and strong feeling , i.e. emotion, becomes the urge , the Buddha called 'thirst ' tanha.)

'It builds these illusions as surely as the skilful commentator on T.V. can manipulate an audience to create anger or tears. So if you seek for Truth, you should value silent awareness, considering it more important, when meditating, than any thought whatsoever.'

( It is an art of not getting attached to what the mind is suggesting, isn't it?. There is good reason to let go until the weakness of attention allows again distraction but the nature of the mind is restlessness and silence disturbs the habit . So the 'skilful commentator' is the mean of defence to avoid the change towards the passivity of observance. We may not forget that restlessness is stated as the 9th fetter in the Sutta Pitaka , i.e. just before ignorance . Anothet aspect of inner speech is to seek ways how to 'manage' one's feelings, in particular the unpleasant those from boredom to strong pain or from interest .)

'It is the high value that one gives to one's thoughts that is the major obstacle to silent awareness. Carefully removing the importance one gives to one's thinking and realizing the value and truthfulness of silent awareness, is the insight that makes this second stage -- silent awareness of the present moment -- possible.'
(the value may depend on the situation.. but as meditation is concerned it is certainly a major obstacle . The resolution ' to practise with silence ' before the session seems to me easier than challenge an inner monologue about values )


'You may imagine your mind to be a host at a party, meeting the guests as they come in the door. If one guest comes in and you meet them and start talking to them about this that or the other, then you are not doing your duty of paying attention to the next guest that comes in the door. Since a guest comes in the door every moment, all you can do is to greet one and then immediately go on to greet the next one. You cannot afford to engage in even the shortest conversation with any guest, since this would mean you would miss the one coming in next. In meditation, all experiences come through the door of our senses into the mind one by one in succession. If you greet one experience with mindfulness and then get into conversation with your guest, then you will miss the next experience following right behind.'

(just greeting , i.e. noting who came )

'When you are perfectly in the moment with every experience, with every guest that comes in your mind, then you just do not have the space for inner speech. You cannot chatter to yourself because you are completely taken up with mindfully greeting everything just as it arrives in your mind. This is refined present moment awareness to the level that it becomes silent awareness of the present in every moment.
When you focus on the breath, you focus on the experience of the breath happening now. You experience `that which tells you what the breath is doing', whether it is going in or out or in between. Some teachers say to watch the breath at the tip of the nose, some say to watch it at the abdomen and some say to move it here and then move it there. I have found through experience that it does not matter where you watch the breath. In fact it is best not to locate the breath anywhere! If you locate the breath at the tip of your nose then it becomes nose awareness, not breath awareness, and if you locate it at your abdomen then it becomes abdomen awareness. Just ask yourself the question right now, "Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?" How do you know? There! That experience which tells you what the breath is doing, that is what you focus on in breath meditation. Let go of concern about where this experience is located; just focus on the experience itself.'

( I suppose most meditation teachers recommend a location , where motion is felt. Obviously one needs to try what works best for oneself. E.g to imagine the movement of the abdomen like a bellows , being synchron with in- and out-breathing, makes it -I.M.O. - easier to keep the focus though still able to recognize what is going on.)

'A common problem at this stage is the tendency to control the breathing, and this makes the breathing uncomfortable. To overcome this problem, imagine that you are just a passenger in a car looking through the window at your breath. You are not the driver, nor a `back seat driver', so stop giving orders, let go and enjoy the ride. Let the breath do the breathing while you simply watch without interfering.'

(yes, actually the breath is controlled by the autonomic nervous system ..we interfere with the frequence usually when paying attention . I wonder whether the yogi practise of bringing the breath to a certain pattern is useful. )

to be continued
Kalama
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Re: Leigh Brasington's Interpretations of the Jhanas

Post by Kalama »

I started to draft my next post ( passages from a disquisition about Jhana practise by Leigh B. (thus time by himself) and recognized my messages are likely becoming too long to be read.
A case of ' tl;dr , as I recently stumbled upon ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... idn't_read 'This page in a nutshell: Be concise'. "I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short"— Blaise Pascal) '

Remembering that thinking too needs to be absorbed when passing the first Jhana , it seems to me that I may just fall into the trap of keeping the mind comfortably busy , even with this post ...


Well, what I miss so far is a concise description of one's experience refering to the Sutta texts as e.g. stated in DN 2 extract (translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

"In the same way, when these five hindrances are not abandoned in himself, the monk regards it as a debt, a sickness, a prison, slavery, a road through desolate country. But when these five hindrances are abandoned in himself, he regards it as unindebtedness, good health, release from prison, freedom, a place of security. Seeing that they have been abandoned within him, he becomes glad. Glad, he becomes enraptured. Enraptured, his body grows tranquil. His body tranquil, he is sensitive to pleasure. Feeling pleasure, his mind becomes concentrated.

(The Four Jhanas)
"Quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities, he enters and remains in the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal. Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman's apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again and again with water, so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within and without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk permeates... this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal.
"This is a fruit of the contemplative life, visible here and now, more excellent than the previous ones and more sublime.

"Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. Just like a lake with spring-water welling up from within, having no inflow from the east, west, north, or south, and with the skies supplying abundant showers time and again, so that the cool fount of water welling up from within the lake would permeate and pervade, suffuse and fill it with cool waters, there being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool waters; even so, the monk permeates... this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure."This, too, is a fruit of the contemplative life, visible here and now, more excellent than the previous ones and more sublime."
unquote

continue with the topic if or when I am coming closer to 'brevity is the soul of wit (or insight! ?)
Kalama
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Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:35 pm

Re: Leigh Brasington's Interpretations of the Jhanas

Post by Kalama »

continue (5) with quotation from wellknown Dhamma teacher Ven. Nyanaponika Thera , whose disquisitions may add to the introduction of Jhana- guides by Leigh.
I.M.O.it is quite benefitial to recall the 5 Hindrances and what to do about it as preparation of Jhana meditation. Not really concize but that may be the task of the reader , keeping best associations for practise in mind..

Extract from the introduction ( see: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el026.html )

' They are called "hindrances" because they hinder and envelop the mind in many ways, obstructing its development (bhavana). According to the Buddhist teachings, spiritual development is twofold: through tranquillity (samatha-bhavana) and through insight (vipassana-bhavana). Tranquillity is gained by complete concentration of the mind during the meditative absorptions (jhana). For achieving these absorptions, the overcoming of the five hindrances, at least temporarily, is a preliminary condition. It is especially in the context of achieving the absorptions that the Buddha often mentions the five hindrances in his discourses.

There are five mental constituents which are chiefly representative of the first meditative absorption, and are therefore called the factors of absorption (jhananga). For each of these there is, according to Buddhist commentarial tradition, one of the five hindrances that is specifically harmful for it and excludes its higher development and refinement to the degree required for jhana; and on the other hand, the cultivation of these five factors beyond their average level will be an antidote against the hindrances, preparing the road to jhana. The relationship between these two groups of five is indicated in this anthology, under the heading of the respective hindrance.'

Remembering Sangha Day ( Magha Puja) , I am thinking about the Venerable's teacher : Ven Nyanatiloka Maha Thera ,only the second Westener admitted to the Order, and his contributions to spread the Teaching. We may be quite grateful of all who like him made it possible to learn about what the Master has proclaimed.
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