A Place to Discuss Dynamic Jhana vs Static Jhana

This is a place for questions and comments about "Dynamic Jhana vs Static Jhana."

Thank you for this Kenneth, it certainly helped me put some things in perspective after listening to that podcast with Pa Auk's students and also something I've been pondering for a while. I also like the way you illustrated this in the past: "Those who claim that you never really know how to ride a motorcycle unless you know how to backflip with it and ride it upside-down, and those who simply ride the motorcycle to work."

I like how you pick up on different issues which need clarification from the forums and elucidate them in a way conducive for good practice.

Many thanks.

I love these Flash animations because they help remove the potential misinterpretations that can happen when there are just words. Nice work!

Thanks Kenneth,

I remember you saying that yogis who progress faster than others generally will have better concentration skills. Is it ok in your opinion to develop mastery of the jhanas with that goal in mind, that is to become more skilled in concentration? Whereas to become enlightened, it is more beneficial to just let the jhanas arise naturally on their own without manipulation?

At the moment I have lightening fast access to the 8 jhanas at a superficial level (soft jhana) but my hard jhanic skills need some developing. Are you saying it is not neccesary to develop hard jhanic states? When I do let the jhanic arc do it's thing, they feel like soft jhanas when they pass by. I don't think I'll be old and grey bearded before I get full mastery of the jhanas....or is this advice more for those pre-path?

And do you think it will speed up progress from 2nd to 3rd path practicing dynamic jhana?

"Thanks Kenneth,
I remember you saying that yogis who progress faster than others generally will have better concentration skills. Is it ok in your opinion to develop mastery of the jhanas with that goal in mind, that is to become more skilled in concentration? Whereas to become enlightened, it is more beneficial to just let the jhanas arise naturally on their own without manipulation?

At the moment I have lightening fast access to the 8 jhanas at a superficial level (soft jhana) but my hard jhanic skills need some developing. Are you saying it is not neccesary to develop hard jhanic states? When I do let the jhanic arc do it's thing, they feel like soft jhanas when they pass by. I don't think I'll be old and grey bearded before I get full mastery of the jhanas....or is this advice more for those pre-path?

And do you think it will speed up progress from 2nd to 3rd path practicing dynamic jhana?"

Nikolai, these are excellent questions. I'm looking forward to Kenneth's reply.

Kenneth & Michael, thanks for the cute animation. It's fun, visually applicable, and serves as a reminder that sometimes we need to lighten up in our practice or teaching.

Kenneth
What is your opinion of Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder's book "Practicing the Jhanas"?

Good question lpm99a, I'd like to know what Kenneth thinks also. It seems like Tina R and Steven S are totally and exclusively focused on static Jhanas, even to the point that in their method the jhana's have to occur with a specific type of namitha.

Whatever's the case though, it's really great that Jhana is finding it's way into western practice. Tina and Steven are super enthusiastic about making this happen, albeit through a very specific method.

@Nick: I'm sharing the computer with my wife tonight, and she has a paper due, but I'm looking forward to answering soon.

@Ipm99a: (From my Q&A on Jhana) "In the California desert there lives a group of young men who worship bicycles. They call themselves the Blessed Brotherhood of the BMX. They do not work, but subsist entirely on the donations of their devotees. They spend their days riding bicycles. They can ride bikes on one wheel, make their bikes jump into the air, do backflips, frontflips, 360s and 720s. They believe strongly that unless a person can do a backflip on a bicycle, that person has never ridden a bicycle at all.

Elsewhere, around the world, millions (billions?) of people are using their bicycles to get to work, go to the market, tour the countryside, or play. Are they not riding bikes?

Perhaps the well-intentioned members of the Blessed Brotherhood of the BMX have adopted an extreme view of what it means to ride a bicycle in order to justify their own lifestyle. While it's true that they are unparalleled masters of biking, they have somehow lost touch with what biking is really all about.

It's like that with jhana. It isn't that jana as taught by Leigh Brasington is "jhana light." Rather, jhana as taught by Ajahn Brahm is "extreme jhana." Do you see how defining things in terms of extremes results in flawed definitions?"

Don't hesitate to ask me for clarification! (I haven't yet listened to Tina & Sephen's interview, so I will and I'll post here again soon.)

Update: Listened to the BGeeks interview. See posts 35, 36. Tina and Stephen are not "extreme jhana" advocates from what I've heard so far. BMX Brotherhood story may not apply. I'll have to read their book to know for sure. But their teaching is garden variety stuff, familiar to many of my students, but in traditional language.

This is a comment that is based purely on my own practice experience:

Deep jhana practice (like Ajahn Brahm describes) might be fun and I'm sure it's satisfying in many ways, but deep, deep static jhana practice hasn't been necessary to the progress of insight from my perspective. What has been significant for me in regard to jhanas is practicing the jhanic arc (dynamic jhana) and this using the jhanas thus as a perspective on mind experience, meditative and non-meditative. The jhanas each, in turn, provide a perch, a balcony, a view, of a different aspect of the mind and related mental activity.

For lpm99a: Never saw you post here before. Welcome!

Hi Nick,

In answer to your first set of questions, I can just say that if the definition of jhana is to remain in one jhana without thinking for hours at a time, I have never attained jhana. (In my opinion, that is not a useful definition of jhana, but it is the definition used by some.) So, in order to become enlightened, I can confidently say that extreme jhana is not necessary. In fact, my definition of enlightenment is to dis-embed from experience, which is the polar opposite of absorption. The kind of concentration that is beneficial in developmental enlightenment is flexible and dynamic. It allows you to access the entire spectrum of consciousness and objectify each stratum of mind. This is what I mean when I talk about becoming a jhana master.

You wrote: "At the moment I have lightening fast access to the 8 jhanas at a superficial level (soft jhana) but my hard jhanic skills need some developing. Are you saying it is not neccesary to develop hard jhanic states?"

Yes, that is what I am saying, if by "hard jhana" you mean "no-thought-for-two-hours."

You wrote: "When I do let the jhanic arc do it's thing, they feel like soft jhanas when they pass by. I don't think I'll be old and grey bearded before I get full mastery of the jhanas....or is this advice more for those pre-path?"

You're on the right track.

You: "And do you think it will speed up progress from 2nd to 3rd path practicing dynamic jhana?"

Absolutely. One must access the full spectrum of available states. Riding the jhanic arc up and down is the most efficient way to make progress. You can't follow the jhanic arc unless you have sufficient concentration to access and objectify each stratum of mind. Therefore, the jhanic arc serves as a feedback loop that tells you you're doing it right.

Thanks for the great questions!

Kenneth

"
For lpm99a: Never saw you post here before. Welcome!

"

When I read MCTB, it seemed to me that Daniel was laying out hard jhana as the path to true insight practice--very much in the same way as Pa Auk Sayadaw and his students Steve Snyder, Tina Rasmussen and Shaila Catherine do in their teachings. For example, Daniel basically says you've got to attain access concentration and the first jhana before you should even begin to try to do insight practice. Pa Auk Sayadaw wants students to master all of these hard jhana states as a path of purification--what Steve and Tina repeatedly refer to as "the thinning of the me" and "the practice doing you"--before turning to vipassana w' the goal of seeing "the kalapas." (Not sure if I'm spelling that right.) This idea of honing concentration to an extraordinary degree in order to turn this laser-like attention on mentality and materiality, to see the very stuff of reality as it is almost at the subatomic level, sure sounds a lot like Daniel's recommended approach.
Doesn't Daniel, who in MCTB recommends books by Visuddhimagga jhana teachers, want you to develop samatha in order to see the ultimate energy/matter mentality/materiality that make up all of experience? Pa Auk wants you to focus on the anapana spot until the nimitta arises; you then take this as your object. Daniel, likewise, talks about concentrating on an object until you can see it with your eyes closed, and then taking this mental image as your object. Same thing, right?
Is Daniel talking about soft jhana or hard? Is the only difference here that Pa Auk wants you to master the jhanas in precisely the ways that are outlined in the Visuddhimagga (i.e. staying in them for hours, doing the proverbial 360s on the BMX bike)? Whereas Daniel has different criteria? Is Kenneth interested in soft jhana rather than these hard states? I'm getting way confused now!
And welcome lpm99a!

Thank you cmarti!

"(I haven't yet listened to Tina & Sephen's interview, so I will and I'll post here again soon.)"

Hi Kenneth.
Better overviews of what they are teaching--simply because they're much longer MP3s recorded in retreat settings and are therefore more thorough and less rushed--can be found at:

www.jhanasadvice.com/id16.html

www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/261/

I don't know &*^% from shinola about this stuff, but I've been interested in trying to figure out what concentration practice is all about and have listened to these talks and read the book Practicing the Jhanas. Trying to grasp the subtleties of what you're talking about in this thread. It would be nice to hear more detail about your take on Pa Auk's approach to practice. I've been very interested in it, which, given my near total inability to go on retreat at this point in my life, is kind of funny!

"Hi Nick,

In answer to your first set of questions,...Therefore, the jhanic arc serves as a feedback loop that tells you you're doing it right.

Thanks for the great questions!

Kenneth"

Sorry. My last two posts hit the site before this explanation. We must have been posting at the same time, Kenneth. Thanks. This starts to clarify things...

Thank you so much for that explanation, Kenneth.

So just to clarify. The ultimate practice that I should be giving priority right now in order to progress to the next path is just sitting in the Witness and letting the jhanic arc do it's thing. No manipulation whatsoever. Is this correct Kenneth?

And just to clarify, I don't think I've experienced the extreme jhana of no thinking for long periods. When I use the term soft jhana vs hard jhana , at least in my experience I still am able to think somewhat in the hard jhanas even all the way up to the 8th....even there there are subtler sensations of thinking in that one for me.

Anyway, for me the hard jhana is just a lot more concentrated than the soft superficial versions of which I can just will the mind into when I want. So again just to clarify... experiencing these superficial versions of the jhanas is sufficient enough to disembed oneself from them and objectify them? I don't need to objectify the harder more concentrated versions of them?

To tell you the truth, in whatever jhana state I am in, there is a part of the mind which automatically pays attention to the three characteristics...it's like I can't stop myself from investigating. When in the Witness, is there no need to pay attention to the three characterisitics? Is it complete passive observation without investigation?

Sorry about all the questions. This really relates to where I am in my practice and I want to progress as fast as i can.
(I know...patience, patience....but hey, if there is a faster way...why not?)

Hi, JGroove. This is a source of major confusion and I sure hope Kenneth's work can help clear it up because I fear it demotivates people as they think they need to be hard core jhana junkies in order to have an effective vipassana practice. Daniel Ingram is pretty clear in MCTB in that he says, in essence, that to progress along the Theravada/Mahasi Sayadaw insight path one need only have a certain effective amount of concentration. You don't need to have a hard jhana practice but you do need to be able to concentrate on an object long enough to have an effective insight practice. That's just not the same thing.

As you practice and develop your vispassana skills your jhana practice will improve alongside and at a certain point your jhana practice will just take off. Ask Nikolai what that's like

Daniel Ingram says in MCTB:

"Should you need someone to tell you how long to practice, start with 10 minutes a day and work up to an hour or two each day as your life allows. **** If you can learn to hold your attention completely on your chosen object for even one solid minute, you have some strong concentration skills ****. That said, you might have 10 hours a day to devote to practice. Don't let me hold you back! How long it will take you to develop access concentration is dependent upon a number of factors including practice conditions, your natural and cultivated concentration ability, the strength of your drive to succeed, and how much you practice."

I added the ****'s for emphasis.

"
Hi, JGroove. This is a source of major confusion ... your natural and cultivated concentration ability, the strength of your drive to succeed, and how much you practice.""

Thanks, Chris.
OK, so on Friday of last week I was upset about something, so I went and sat on the cushion and just disembedded from the sensate phenomena related to this state of upset. Last night, I disembedded from and observed all the sensations related to "the feeling of wanting to get up and stop practicing, go downstairs, turn on MonsterQuest and eat Ben & Jerry's!" It was pretty extraordinary to see that solid feeling break up into so many constituent, fluctuating parts.
I've been doing concentration practices now for nearly a year--since picking up MCTB, and over the summer started doing Pa Auk's anapanasati technique.
I've just started doing vipassana practice literally over the last couple of weeks, having talked with Kenneth about First Gear practices. This is how thick-headed I am--I figured I needed to do concentration practice probably for years until I attained this high state, Access Concentration, and jhana developed.
Part of what had me confused is that Access Concentration, as described in a book by B. Alan Wallace I had read, was this extremely high attainment that Tibetan monastics would go off on retreat to try to obtain.
So it sounds like to me I have already attained access concentration: I can, at times, stay disembedded from various phenomena at least enough to relate to them in a different way. On Friday, for example, the samatha seemed to be providing this spacious background and stability for the vipassana. All this stuff about nimitta, bouncing in and out of hard concentration states, etc., seems a million miles away from where I'm at.
So I guess what I'm doing now is dividing my cushion time between samatha and vipassana, with a view toward doing Witness and Third Gear practice.

Nick: "So just to clarify. The ultimate practice that I should be giving priority right now in order to progress to the next path is just sitting in the Witness and letting the jhanic arc do it's thing. No manipulation whatsoever. Is this correct Kenneth?"

Yes, this is correct.

Nick: "So again just to clarify... experiencing these superficial versions of the jhanas is sufficient enough to disembed oneself from them and objectify them? I don't need to objectify the harder more concentrated versions of them?"

That is correct. In fact, the "harder, more concentrated versions" require that you become embedded in them. That's the whole point, and the essential difference between "pure jhana" and "vipassana jhana;" in pure jhana, you are embedded. In vipassana jhana, you are consciously objectifying the sensations and mind states associated with the jhana. It's the objectifying of the jhana that gets you enlightened. This is why pure jhana is considered by many contemplative traditions as a very sophisticated form of mental masturbation; it feels good, but produces no fruit. Even advocates of extreme jhana point out that eventually you have to vipassanize the jhana. Why not do that all along the way and save yourself the trouble? After enlightenment, if you're still interested, you can go back and master hard jhana.

Nick: "When in the Witness, is there no need to pay attention to the three characterisitics? Is it complete passive observation without investigation?"

That's right. Any effort to investigate would just pull you out of the Witness. It's the objectification that does the work. Take the Witness as object and let the practice do its magic.

"

As you practice and develop your vispassana skills your jhana practice will improve alongside and at a certain point your jhana practice will just take off. Ask Nikolai what that's like "

Hehe! It's true. Before getting path, I never bothered to much with intentionally developing access to jhanas. That ultimately happened a couple of days before I got 1st path and they were accessed completely unintentionally. For 9 years I just practiced vipassana. Nothing else...maybe anapana just to get the mind to access concentration to then start practicing vipassana. In my own experience, getting to the 11 stage of equanimity of formations constantly ultimately gave me access to the 4th jhana and below. I think I made my way up the jhanic arc all those years....and by vipassna alone.

I think , and only cos it's my own experience, if you want to experience the jhanas...wait until they happen naturally or after you get a path cos the access is just unbelievably easy. I am still amazed at how getting a path or two cleans out the mind and leaves so much space for jhanas to occur naturally. Resolve to get stream entry and then later worry about developing and mastering jhanas...but only cos it's the way i did it. Each to his/her own.

Oh and a huge thanks to kenneth for all the clarifications. Excellent!

"Oh and a huge thanks to kenneth for all the clarifications. Excellent!"

Thanks, Kenneth. And thanks to Chris and Nikolai as well.
OK, just thinking aloud. So, the discovery of concentration practices has been very interesting for me. I did a lot of practice in my 20s, quit (probably during the dark night) for a decade or so, and then started practicing again a couple of years ago. Until reading MCTB, I knew nothing about true concentration practices as taught in Theravada (meaning those practices in which a person focuses on an object to the exclusion of everything else). I think I did develop a high degree of concentration when I was younger and doing what Kenneth would probably call "fake it 'till you make it" Third-Gear practices, as well as some Trungpa-style shamatha practice with just 10 or 15 percent of the attention on the breath. It was an organic kind of concentration that arose from paying attention for huge spans of time and relaxing a lot, but it was fairly strong concentration nonetheless. It sounds like this was perfectly adequate for vipassana--I just didn't really know what vipassana was and didn't do it. So I take it that most yogis here on these boards do some outright concentration practice but with vipassana as the main thrust of the practice, so long as an adequate level of samatha is present?
I do my best to read the threads; I'll take a closer look at the concentration-related threads. Just trying to figure out how to weight these practices and balance them with vipassana, Second Gear, and Third Gear. Seems like I should focus mostly on First Gear for quite some time.
Anyway, so what's "hardcore" about this type of practice, if it is not focused on hard jhana states, and how does this differ from, say, typical IMS-style practice? Is it just the lack of any concentration practices at all in most mainstream vipassana settings? I aplogize if this is a frustrating level of ignorance.

On my last question above: Take someone who is a longtime vipassana meditator at IMS. Is that person less likely to attain to a path and have access to jhana as Nikolai did? If so, why? It doesn't sound like Nikolai was staring at kasinas for years and years. How did his vipassana differ from an IMS-type approach?

"On my last question above: Take someone who is a longtime vipassana meditator at IMS. Is that person less likely to attain to a path and have access to jhana as Nikolai did? If so, why? It doesn't sound like Nikolai was staring at kasinas for years and years. How did his vipassana differ from an IMS-type approach?"

Hi jgroove,

I am not familiar with the IMS-type approach. I was primarily practising in the Goenka tradition...pure awareness of the body sensations, developing equnimtiy towards all sensations experienced...ocasionally sweeping the body but most of my sitting time was focused on the chest area and the flow of sensations there. I have always had pretty good concentration. When I read about the stages of insight, I realised I was reaching the equanimity of formations stage a lot but not doing any invesitgation. When I read Daniel's book, I made it my primary goal in mysits to invesitgate the sensations of "I"...which i had never done before that...about 2 years ago.
Whenever I sat i would get very concentrated by just doing the momnet to moment invesitgation of the sensations of self. Plus I noted a hell of a lot coupled with simultaneously being aware of the vibrations/sensations on the body. Whenever I noted continuously without break for an hour at a time, my concetration took me places. In my experience.....non-stop noting and awareness of sensatiions got me very very concentrated.

Hope this explains something....oh...I did dablle in a bit of kasina....so maybe that did give me a bit of a push.

Thanks, Nikolai. That is helpful. I've been thinking of, let's say, the typical or most widely practiced style of vipassana (not fair to single out IMS; I've never been there) as basically being about some kind of open-presence vipassana in which concentration isn't emphasized or particularly cultivated. Daniel's book seemed to be all about developing strong concentration to support insight, and I have taken that to be the crucial difference between the two approaches.
That said, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that I don't have a clue what I'm talking about. I guess that's a good thing to recognize. It's pretty easy to absorb a lot of terminology and concepts without really getting what they're pointing to. I'll keep plugging away at the vipassana and will probably continue to do some concentration practice as a support. Given my lack of ability to do long retreats right now, a concentration-as-path-to-jhana-as-path-to-insight approach is making less and less sense to me. Thanks again!