Hardcore jhanas

For those interested in that sort of thing, the second part of a two-part interview with Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder went up on Buddhist Geeks this week. I thought it was great, but I have been taunted and tempted by jhanas for some time now. Their style of jhana practice seems much more hardcore than what is generally discussed here (staying in a particular jhana for 3 hours to "master" it), but it really makes me want to read their book and see how their practice dovetails with that here.

personallifemedia.com/podcasts/236-buddh...odes/80273-mastering
personallifemedia.com/podcasts/236-buddh...1-jedi-mind-training

Jedi mind training. Love it!

Yeah, jhana practice is cool and fun and all that but it's not ultimately the reason we practice. It's more or less a wonderful side note. It's like starting out to climb to the top of a mountain and finding a beautiful hidden valley along the way. The valley is wonderful and tempting but the real objective is to get to the summit.

Tip o' the hat to my good friend and advisor Gozen

I am pro-jhana and think they can help us tremendously in our practice. I have been looking for more info on kasina meditation. Here is a cool pdf that i found with ways to make your kasinas.

www.ayukusala.org/dibbavihara_en.pdf

"
Yeah, jhana practice is cool and fun and all that but it's not ultimately the reason we practice. It's more or less a wonderful side note. It's like starting out to climb to the top of a mountain and finding a beautiful hidden valley along the way. The valley is wonderful and tempting but the real objective is to get to the summit.

Tip o' the hat to my good friend and advisor Gozen

"

Great point Chris,

The podcast covers this too, the jhana's are not the point of practice.

"
Yeah, jhana practice is cool and fun and all that but it's not ultimately the reason we practice. It's more or less a wonderful side note. It's like starting out to climb to the top of a mountain and finding a beautiful hidden valley along the way. The valley is wonderful and tempting but the real objective is to get to the summit.

Tip o' the hat to my good friend and advisor Gozen

"

This is precisely what Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen are saying. What they are all about is developing extremely intense concentration and applying that to vipassana (eventually). They see jhana as a byproduct of concentration, which they describe as a purification process that brings about a "thinning of the me."
Pa Auk Saydaw, their teacher, has people stay in particular jhanas for hours and hours. I gather Kenneth wants you to be able to pop in and out and do the jhanic arc. I'd be interested in what others know about the differences between Pa Auk Sayadaw's approach and what others teach.
One thing I'd like to say: Hats off to Vincent Horn for turning the wheel in a major way. He is all about bringing new perspectives to Buddhism. It has been awesome to hear B. Alan Wallace, Kenneth Folk, Daniel Ingram and Richard Shankman come on his show and talk about hardcore practice in an upfront way. Love it!

I did just concentration practice for years and only recently started vipassana. I have to say, the concentration has really helped me not only in the vipassana practice, but also in my daily life. It really does purify and calm the mind so that you can deal with the dukkha of life with greater equanimity.

Last summer I went on a three day retreat with Stephen and Tina (their very first and mine!) and I have to say that it is a wonderful practice and they are great teachers. Just after three days I could feel a tremendous difference.

Ron

I need to listen to those BG podcasts!

Hi Cmarti.
Here are some other talks, just in case you're interested. I'm doing this practice now. Seems to be moving things forward, and perspective here is worth understanding regardless.

www.jhanasadvice.com/id16.html

www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/261/

Best regards,
Joel

I love Buddhist Geeks, were it not for that podcast I would not have found Daniel and Kennith. I am truly grateful. I enjoyed hearing their talks on Jhana But I think I will wait till I Complete my first insight cycle before trying to master the absorptions...

"I'd be interested in what others know about the differences between Pa Auk Sayadaw's approach and what others teach.
"

Joel,

I put together a Jhana discussion forum on tricycle some time ago that is still active and has resources and info on Stephen and Tina's approach along with other approaches. It may be worth looking at if you want to know more.

As far as differences go, I'd say Tina and Stephen represent a much more rigorous approach. Very systematized and committed. There are other approaches that are more loosey goosey, and require more of a change in attitude and silence than anything else. Ajahn Brahm is a great teacher of the jhanas and details his approach in a book called "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond." Bhante Gunataratana is another great Jhana teacher who just put out a book on the jhanas called "Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English." Another good American teacher of Jhana is Leigh Braisington, who studied with Ayya Khema. There are a lot of free talks of his on the internet, though no books yet that I know of.

Hope this helps.

ron

Thanks for those resources, Ron. I'll check 'em out!

For me, one of the interesting aspects is how the "hardcore jhana" relates to the "hardcore vipassana" practiced here. Jhanas here are often considered as a post-SE treat..."cool and fun and all that". But it is also totally valid to approach SE from jhanas, as Kenneth recently told me, so I would like to know how these two approaches mesh together. Note that at the end of podcast, they talk about moving on to vipassana from a strong concentration background, and that they get to the point where they see reality being deconstructed. Isn't that the vibrations talked about over and over again here and at DhO?

So while it is extreme (to me) to practice jhanas to the point of being able to hold one for 3h, and to cycle through all jhanas with the breath, then the earth kasina, then the water kasina, then..., there is clearly overlap between the two schools that is worth double-clicking on.

Hi, Tomo. In my experience the jhanas and vipassana are very, very complimentary. But... you do not need to be a jhana Olympian to have an effective vipassana practice. All you need is just enough concentration, which as I experienced it is not that hard to obtain. As far as I can tell you are well beyond that point in your practice.

The jhanas are much, much easier to access after path attainment. In fact, the phrase "ease of access" is misleading as the mind at some point just naturally wants to enter the jhanas, almost without effort. Volition alone is enough to start the process rolling. It was quite surprising to me to find out just how accessible jhanas are after first/second path. What my vipassana practice consisted of, as we've discussed, was to focus in investigating what's right in front of me - objects - using vipassana. I was not much of a jhana junkie, if you could ever accuse me of being that, until much later.

I think it would be interesting to practice jhanas for three or four hours and really lock them in, get to know them intimately, and things like that. But again, I have found that to be a fun side-step from the main point, which is... to wake up! I want to be awake as much as possible, so my practice has moved away from vipassana/shamatha and toward the Witness and a practice Kenneth taught me that I call "Watching the Dummy," both as tools to get me more consistently to non-dual awareness.

As always, YMMV.

I like the poscasts. I was struck at the end of part 2 as they were talking about reincarnation as if it were a fact. I'm open to anything but that kind of faith in past and future lives is kind of shocking to me.

"I like the poscasts. I was struck at the end of part 2 as they were talking about reincarnation as if it were a fact. I'm open to anything but that kind of faith in past and future lives is kind of shocking to me.
"

You should listen to Steve Snyder's descriptions of the freaky stuff that happened when he was doing Four Elements practice. Whoa! I don't know how much of the rebirth stuff that Tina and Steve refer to is based on their experience already, and how much of it is just faith. I've always been disinclined to take a position on rebirth, but periodically you'll run into surprising references. Adyashanti's descriptions of his recollection of past lives, given with high reluctance to the interviewer in his book The End of Your World, are pretty interesting. Jack Kornfield will occasionally drop references to these kinds of memories. Maybe they know something I don't! I'll admit to a certain fascination with the paranormal. I read a whole book about the 2,500 cases documented by the University of Virginia of toddlers who suddenly start talking about past lives. Many of them give details about people, events, traumas and so forth from the past lives that are then confirmed by stunned researchers. It's mainstream enough that a Washington Post reporter wrote another book about the research.

I'm definitely open to it being true but at this point with what I know and can see of life it doesn't seem possible.
I remember reading some Kornfield book in which he talked about meditating at a monastery or on a retreat and getting into some jhana or something. He'd been having an argument with another yogi earlier who was also now in a jhana and he met the guy on a astral plane or something and they continued their argument there..
For some reason I always believed that bizarre story.

"In my experience the jhanas and vipassana are very, very complimentary. But... you do not need to be a jhana Olympian to have an effective vipassana practice. All you need is just enough concentration, which as I experienced it is not that hard to obtain. As far as I can tell you are well beyond that point in your practice."

Hey Chris,

I totally get the complementary part of it. I'm just looking for the best way for me to move the marker, and I seem to be stalling with just vipassana and, since I seem to be predisposed to stronger concentration anyhow, this stuff seems to really ring my bell. Whatever gets me to J4/N11 right now is where my head is at. But I do look forward the advanced mental gymnastics you talk about.

I have a friend who is a neurologist who says "mind is brain, brain is mind." We got into a long dialogue on the subject of the possibility of any non-material reality. From his perspective, consciousness is your actual brain tissue.

This reminds me of the stanza:

The world is illusion.
Brahman alone is real.
The world is Brahman.

Even if consciousness is limited to matter, we still have the highly mysterious phenomenon of conscious matter! And we have to ask ourselves, If the universe came into existence from nothing, how on earth could that be? And if it didn't come into existence from absolutely nothing, then how could something have always been. Somehow it has to be both nothing and something. I'm at a loss to approach any of it through reason alone. Fortunately, suffering and the end of suffering is something we can all sink our teeth into--right here. In fact, we have to be right here in order for suffering to end. That's my take at least...

"I have a friend who is a neurologist who says "mind is brain, brain is mind." We got into a long dialogue on the subject of the possibility of any non-material reality. From his perspective, consciousness is your actual brain tissue.

This reminds me of the stanza:

The world is illusion.
Brahman alone is real.
The world is Brahman.

Even if consciousness is limited to matter, we still have the highly mysterious phenomenon of conscious matter! And we have to ask ourselves, If the universe came into existence from nothing, how on earth could that be? And if it didn't come into existence from absolutely nothing, then how could something have always been. Somehow it has to be both nothing and something. I'm at a loss to approach any of it through reason alone. Fortunately, suffering and the end of suffering is something we can all sink our teeth into--right here. In fact, we have to be right here in order for suffering to end. That's my take at least..."

Sorry Tom to hijack this thread again.
Again, I'm open to anything but so far I'm with y our neurologist friend only because it is what I can actually see and know at this point. The brain/mind is stuff. Memories are stuff, feelings are stuff (stuff = material) memories of past lives are stuff in our brains. rapture is stuff, bliss is stuff. Awareness is a bunch of stuff in combination.
Oh, and the stuff is empty (that I seem to get) and, some people say impermanent (pretty clear on this) and not satisfying (still don't quite have this down).

continued from above...

On the course, I got given a pagoda cell for the entire course except for the 6pm to 9pm period when I had to be in the meditation hall. In those times in the meditation cell, I got a toilet paper roll and ripped it in half and then put it at the bottom of the cell door. There was a space there so the light came in under the door....with two cushions I placed them either side of the circular toilet roll making the light shine through the roll creating a circle of light. This was all that was visible. I stared at it until I felt the mind shift into jhana, closed my eyes and focused on the sensations that made up the jhana and absorbed in it. I then willed the mind up to 4th jhana and started immediately investigating because I was now automatically in high equanimity. This was all before I got 1st path on day 5. I didn't include this in my account because I just clean forgot because after day 5, I stopped using the kasina as it seemed I didn't need it anymore.

I think getting to high equanimity constantly, gave me access to the 4th jhana. So I don't see why the other nanas which correspond to the jhana can't be used to access their jhanas, ie 1st nana/1st jhana, 4th nana/2nd jhana, 5th nana/3rd jhana.

I think I accessed the 4th by absorbing myself in the sensations and experience of equanimity of formations stage rather than investigate. I am not a 100 percent sure though how i accessed the jhanas so easily. But this is my best guess.

" Whatever gets me to J4/N11 right now is where my head is at. But I do look forward the advanced mental gymnastics you talk about."

Hi Tom,

I dabbled in kasina meditation for a bit last year and I think back to it it as being extremely helpful in pushing me constantly into high equanimous states where I was really able to investigate reality without any hinderance. In the recent 10 day course that I did I happened to actually start practice kasina meditation which i think helped me again get to 1st path on the 5th day of the course. I don't know why but I never included this fact in my account of the course which I posted here on the DhO

www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...oards/message/297362

I first discovered what I would later know to be the first 4 jhanas by accident when I was meditating constantly reaching high equanimity. At one stage, I seemed to get absorbed in that state and it felt slightly different to the investigative quality of equanimity of formations. I thought, woah!, maybe this is 4th jhana which I am accessing. Equanimity of formations and 4th jhana are very similar as Kenneth has said. So I willed the mind to go down into the lower jhanas and the mind automatically went down into 3 distinct states which I instinctually knew as 3rd, 2nd, and 1st. I experimented going up and down these 4 jhanas and seeing if I had access to something above those but it was a bit sketchy so I stayed with those 4. I only wanted to get to 4th jhana so I could keep practising vipassana anyway so that is what i did. But I had a bit of help from a kasina.

I'm wondering from you fellows who are deeply immersed in the theravada practices what you'r experience has been here:
from reading Daniel's descriptions in MCTB, I came away with the impression that Jhanna and Nana are really distinct qualitatively, the difference being the emphasis on smoothness vs. vibration. I have to confess I'm not sure if I can relate to this very easily. Perhaps I'm just inclined to be more of a dry insight worker in this context, but the whole notion of stability and smoothness has always been difficult for me to relate to when I settle down and pay attention, it always seems to move in the direction of vibratory impermanence. However, at some point this fall it did seem obvious that there are four "modes" of attention which corresponded with nanas 1-11, which I experienced in a way similar to your discovery Nikolai, but from the bottom up. I had been digging back in at 1st Nana (grown bored by 11th) and carefully watching the sequence unfold and one day these four attentional patterns replaced or just simplified the progression from initial investigation to high EQ. So there are these four attentional patterns, but they were definitely characterized by vibratory quality, not smooth, except in the sense that the fourth certainly had a smooth fine vibratory quality, still clearly vibratory though. Hmmm.
So my hypotheses is that I developed some access to jhannic states-- which are definitely different from how attention usually functions, at least from 2nd onward-- while observing the Nanas, and therefore they appear for me quite vibratory. Or perhaps I'm missing something here? I admit I'm pretty unfamilar with the Vipassana tradition, except for some mushroom exposure and what little of Daniel and Kenneth's far, far more clear teachings I seem to have direct experience with.

p.s.
thanks for posting the links tomo!
And thanks to Vince or anyone else connected with BG, apparently I'm not the only one led here through your podcasts!

" and one day these four attentional patterns replaced or just simplified the progression from initial investigation to high EQ. So there are these four attentional patterns, but they were definitely characterized by vibratory quality, not smooth, except in the sense that the fourth certainly had a smooth fine vibratory quality, still clearly vibratory though. Hmmm.
So my hypotheses is that I developed some access to jhannic states-- "

Hey jhsaintonge,

When I experience jhanas now I have two options. I can just stay in the superficial state of the jhana and observe the corresponding vibrations/sensations of the jhana, maybe investigate the sensations of "I" bringing in the whole vipassana slant with the three characteristics taking centre stage. Here there is definitely a fine vibrational quality to the jhanas.

The other option is to just forget about investigating and will the mind to a hard deep state of the jhana. I still observe , at least in the first 4 jhanas, a hell of a lot of fine vibrational quality. There the mind just rests but to tell you the truth there is still a part of the mind aware of what is going on concerning the three characteristics. I don't know if that is a result of path or not but for me all my jhana experiences have fine vibratory quality. Thje quality of vibrations getting subtler, less gross as you go up to the 4th then at least for me I still feel a very subtle vibrations on the body for the immaterial jhanas but the main focus is mental, as in space, consciousness, no-thingness and the 8th which is weird but awesome.

continued from above

As I go into 1st now for example, The vibratory quality is a very gross pleasant vibrational flow throughout the body. That flow of vibrations seems more obvious on the surface of the body. When I shift to 2nd, that grossness seems to drop away and a subtler vibration is felt inside the body more than on the surface. When I shift to 3rd, there is a sensation which drops away and I still can't explain what the difference is. But I am left feeling a subtler vibration thoughout the body. Then to 4th, the vibrational quality definitely becomes very subtle, pleasant, and has an almost cooler quality to it. It is very calming compared to the other 3 lower jhanas, it is the most peaceful for me. For example, the 1st seems almost too gross with it's pleasantness.

I can relate to when you say that those 4 states simplified the process of getting to high equanimity. I felt that is what helped me get quickly to high equanimity in each of my sittings on the course. Good to hear someone having similar experiences