What's Progress? Discernment of Stages and States

Chuanose posted a comment yesterday on "A Sitting Journal" that inspired me to create a thread aimed at working collectively to improve discernment of stages and states.

Chuanose wrote:

"I think I've mixed up the meaning of 'blissful'"

I've done this sort of thing, too, over the years. I think it's the sort of error that can often hide one's own progress from oneself. In other words, if more meditators were able to identify jhanas, for instance, they might feel better about their own progress more often and more quickly, relax, gain confidence, not get lost in content, and continue making progress.

So, this is a place for folks to acclimate themselves better in their own practice, especially regarding jhanas and nyanas, by bringing questions to the group.

Having been inspired by the discussion on Chuanose's thread, I've had in mind discerning states by clarifying phenomena like rapture, bliss, the "OK" happiness of Equanimity, that sort of thing, but the field is open. Let's try to err on the side of casting too wide a net, at the outset.

Edited for accuracy.

I don't know what things mean either most of the time, but here is my guess at a few:
"rapture" -- any kind of pleasant waves of chills, skin tingling, etc. This can be weak and only on a few parts ot the body to strong and all over the body.

"bliss" -- I've only felt something I'd describe this way a few times, but for me it is when awareness becomes full of ease and effortlessness and both the body and mind have actual feelings of pleasure that are significantly greater than any experienced in normal states.

I'll start us off with a question. How do people here distinguish between rapture (piti) and bliss (sukkha)? In my own experience, rapture involves a strong surge of energy in the torso, and is approximated crudely by the English word elation, whereas bliss involves a spreading cool energy throughout the body, especially from the torso out into the limbs and up into the head, and is approximated crudely by the English word relaxation. How does this line up with others experiences? [How] can jhanas and nyanas be known by this sort of phenomena? How might one identify the factors that make these up (see links below)?

Here are a few related links from Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PÄ«ti

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukha

Hmmm... just saw your post, Mike. Yeah, what you identify as rapture is what I also call rapture, specifically goose-flesh rapture. And it sounds like we're on the same page when it comes to bliss, but for me it's pretty common, which leads me to wonder whether I'm describing something more mundane, and not the "sukkha" sort of bliss.

I experience that sort of bliss as a pretty natural follow-up to things like rapture, eyeball fluttering, and especially deep anapanasati practice.

Doesn't rapture have a focal point? And isn't bliss a generalized sense?

Just askin'

"
Hmmm... just saw your post, Mike. Yeah, what you identify as rapture is what I also call rapture, specifically goose-flesh rapture. And it sounds like we're on the same page when it comes to bliss, but for me it's pretty common, which leads me to wonder whether I'm describing something more mundane, and not the "sukkha" sort of bliss.

I experience that sort of bliss as a pretty natural follow-up to things like rapture, eyeball fluttering, and especially deep anapanasati practice.

"

Hi Ryguy,

There seems to be differing degrees of what i would call "bliss".

So we have the "overly-gross" vibrations of the 1st jhana, which for me, feels like champagne bubbles all over the body. This is blissful to a degree. But not my favourite. Maybe this is more raptrue. Hmmm. I feel it more on the torso than the limbs.

The 3rd jhana has the vibrations, felt more on the surface of the limbs, be less bubbly than the 1st and more uniform and subtler. But they are still quite obvious and pleasant. There is still a grossness to this bliss. Just not as in your face as the 1st jhana.

Then there is the bliss of the pure abodes. For me, this is a very refined version of the bliss of the 3rd. In fact it is more like the 4th jhana but much subtler and "lighter". The vibrations are very, very subtle throughout the body , very uniform vibrations that seem to be vibrating faster than the lower jhanas. More like a pleasant hum. Within the pure abodes, going upwards it seems that the blissful vibrations get subtler and more refined.

Then we have the bliss waves after a fruition. These vibrations are more related to the pure abode bliss.

I think for me, rapture is the extremely obvious shots up the back and around the body of crazy pleasant electric shivers that I get at the A/P nana.

Edited to say, yeh, what Chris said.

I always enjoy a discussion on the jhana factors. My experience is far less than perfect, but here's my general take on it...

Applied thought: on the one hand, just as it sounds - the application of thought or attention on an object. This is sort of like a fighter pilot aligning their sights onto a moving target (even though the object of meditation may not move). When the pilot can keep the sights on the target, that's applied thought.

Sustained thought: this is like when the fighter pilot is able to lock-on to the target. Applied thought continues, but sustained thoughts keeps the mind fixed on the object in a different way. The difference is quite subtle.

Rapture: A tingling sense of bodily enjoyment. Gooseflesh is common. More energetic than simple happiness or pleasure. "Exhilaration" and "elation" are good words to describe this.

Happiness: The emotional quality of enjoyment, but in a cool, chilled-out sort of way. Calm happiness. Contentedness. Bodily vibrations are much more subtle with this factor, but they do remain to some degree.

One-pointedness: the mind is not only locked on to the object, but steady all around. The achievement of total stability.

Many descriptions of 4th jhana list only one factor: one-pointedness. In my case, and in some other descriptions (like those of Kenneth and the late Ajahn Lee, for example) "equanimity" can be considered a factor of 4th jhana as well, as both the phenomenological condition and emotional quality are stable (i.e. not volatile).

~Jackson

Even assuming that the maps are completely accurate and inevitable, I'm beginning to observe that how everyone experiences the different stages and states can vary widely.
Some seem able to zoom right along and get steady real quick and be able to access all kinds of bliss while others are much more haphazard, slower, uncomfortable and not always privy to pleasant states. Clearly a lot must depend on both one's previous spiritual experience and apptitude as well their personality and life experience, expectations, time available for practice, life situation, needs, etc.
I can't tell you how many times I've read reports on this and other sites from realtive new comers who relate amazing mystical experiences, jhanic abilities, bliss, rapture, etc. and just been blown away. I mean, I've done a lot of sitting and other practices in my life without ANY of that stuff happening to me.
Probably, for the most part, yogis with these abilities tend to be the ones attracted to this kind of stuff in the first place, don't you think?

So what is my point? I guess I'm just relating my own observations in order to see if any one else agrees or has any thoughts on same.

Mike, these phenomena can be very subtle. I'm more like you, I think, in that I'm just not all that tuned into the jhanas and the nuances of the Theravada four path stuff, although there have been times when practice pushed it in my face (so to speak). So even though you haven't noticed and thus don't report on a lot of overt stuff happening that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to you, or that it won't happen at some point. These things, practice effects, details of various states and stages, jhanas, and so on can be very low level, hard to discern phenomena. And like you said we're all different and have different sensitivities and abilities to pick up on the nuances. And while you may not be able to report on the details and nuances your practice journal and the honesty you bring to it and to this place in general is just amazing. So I'm appreciating just who you are!

"
Mike, these phenomena can be very subtle. I'm more like you, I think, in that I'm just not all that tuned into the jhanas and the nuances of the Theravada four path stuff, although there have been times when practice pushed it in my face (so to speak). So even though you haven't noticed and thus don't report on a lot of overt stuff happening that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to you, or that it won't happen at some point. These things, practice effects, details of various states and stages, jhanas, and so on can be very low level, hard to discern phenomena. And like you said we're all different and have different sensitivities and abilities to pick up on the nuances. And while you may not be able to report on the details and nuances your practice journal and the honesty you bring to it and to this place in general is just amazing. So I'm appreciating just who you are!

"

I've wondered that lately -- if some of us may move along on the maps and have a nice but more calm experience, while others may go to the same places and it's all fireworks all the time. Same stuff going on, just different abilities to pick up on some aspects.
Really, I'm not complaining, and I LOVE being able to hear eveyone's details. "walking around" my suffering really has decreased significantly and continues to no matter what I may have to report about my sittings and that is actually all I really care about.

""walking around" my suffering really has decreased significantly and continues to no matter what I may have to report about my sittings and that is actually all I really care about. "

Palabra! (as you so often exclaim)

Much happening is not conscious and then what is conscious is interpreted. Then much of the actual experience ( and therefore the descriptions ) will probably vary significantly between individuals and trying to map these differences in detail adds to the confusion. These are factors that I think can make identification with maps differcult for some. Personally I think I also struggle describing or labeling the subjective experience, it is just not something I am into or do well. Like all learning ( but perhaps more so here ) good and experienced teachers make a difference. Students are assisted by the experience and skills of the teacher, and this assistance has no substitute in reading a book.

One challenge here is that you only have a conceptual understanding of something until it is an experience, at which point you KNOW what it is.
Take bliss. I have pleasant meditation experiences all the time, and I know the ebb and flow of prana quite well. However, only once--at least in the couple of years since I've resumed meditation practice--have I experienced a kind of bliss that was truly extraordinary. I was out on my back porch and was experimenting with 2nd-person kind of stuff, repeating the phrase "God, let me be undistracted in your presence" over and over. By doing this, I was able to surrender, and a feeling of bliss came over me that was like nectar pouring out from the center of my body.
Now I've been thinking THAT was piti.
Absent this experience, it would be very easy for me to define "bliss" as the more mundane stuff that happens on a regular basis. I sometimes wonder if people aren't giving phenomena short shrift in this way, simply because they don't know what the actual thing is from experience.
So, for example, is surprises me to hear relative newcomers to meditation talking about how they're going up into the fourth jhana and so forth. They might be doing that, but it's hard not to wonder if they're misidentifying the phenomena. (Or is that the jealousy talking?)
Then there's the wrinkle of differing definitions. These Pa Auk practitioners will go to Burma for months and come back saying, "I didn't get jhana." They'll say stuff like, "Believe me, when you get first jhana, you'll know it!" They seem to define jhana as this incredible, hard concentration state that is extremely difficult to attain. I wonder if it's ever possible to nail down all these terms--because, for the individual yogi, ultimately it's the experience, not the concept, that leads to true understanding of what the term represents.