Concentration post-path

This is something I've been curious about for some time now. When reading and listening to path+ people talking about concentration it's clear that it's a different beast after stream-entry. From what I can tell most of you just 'freestyle'-concentrate up the arc. I'm intrigued by this, what is it that you "do"? Do you follow your memory of the jhanas, your intuition, resolve, 'lean' against it? I ask because I notice in my own concentration practice that I can (apparently) do the same thing with the same energy and focus two days in a row, but get completely different results. It seems the devil is in the details. Therefor I feel it might be of use to milk the insight from the concentration elite which might help fertilize my own concentration. So it would be interesting to read a detailed report on how a post stream-entry practitioner gets from 'normal-mode' to solid 1st jhana. I am aware it might not be easy to explain, but don't be afraid to get detailed and weird.

Appreciate it.

I think the experience of how easy it is to access may differ from yogi to yogi. I found that just before stream entry occurred, i was definitely in the 11th nana in high equanimity. Suddenly, the mind kind of got more absorbed in the sensations because i had stopped noting. I was riding them rather than disembedding from them. Boom! I was in the 4th jhana for the first time ever. I just intuitively knew it was the 4th. While in it I had the thought: "So what do the jhanas underneath feel like?" I just willed the mind down to whatever the 3rd was. And there it was. THen 2nd and 1st. After stream entry occurred soon after this discovery, I found that from the memory of that previous experience I could just will the mind into any jhana and boom! It moved there automatically. I really have no idea how I did it. It was and is all just by thinking about it, and the mind automatically moves there. Now these days, I guess I recognize each jhana so well that the mind knows what 4th feels like, what 8th feels like etc. I recognise their handles

But when I discovered them, it was more like exploring whatever was after a jhana or before. I had no idea what would be experienced. But it seems the jhanas arise in order as they seemed hardwired in the brain to do so. Once you find a "handle" on each jhana, all you have to do is think of that "handle" and the mind will move there.

Also, having cut out a path up to the 11th nana will definitely help your jhanic access. Each jhana corresponds to nana. If you master that specific nana, all you need to do is think of what it feels like, will the mind there and, let the mind get absorbed in the specific sensations associated with it, ride them and you will move to the corresponding jhana. Or stay in them as vipassana jhanas and keep practicing insight.

Thank you Nikolai. I'm going to try to add more intention and try and will my mind against going jhanic, instead of just sitting and 'waiting'. I think I have an idea of where my mind needs to go.

I would say that there a variety of ways to concentrate, flavors of concentration, as well as practices that all fall under the concentration umbrella. What I would say is that path and post-path is that all of it is additive; you don't abandon certain ways of concentration, you just keep adding on with different tools. All the ones you mention are ones I have found and still find useful.

The reason that this additive dimension is important is that, as you are noticing, things change pretty dramatically from day to day. A practice leads one place one day, another place another day. A certain mode feels right at one moment, and then this changes and you need to switch gears or intentions. As Kenneth points out, knowing where the energy is going--what practice is presenting itself in any moment--is an important meta-skill that people develop on the path.

I wish I had known this earlier, or rather listened harder to people who said this kind of thing (I just kind of thought they were wishy-washy--I was going to figure it out!). Anyway, it would have saved me a lot of grief. I wanted practice to be pure and predictable from day to day and month to month and year to year. Like I would just do one thing always and always get there. It never was like this and it still isn't. All I ended up doing was arguing with myself.

Yours,
Mark

P.S. Looking back at my answer, it's looks like I pontificated on a meta-point and didn't give a detailed answer to your actual question. So I'll cover the bases and try to say something specific (from my own experience, of course).

Post-path, the shift from normal to 1st jhana just requires a small shift in attention; just basically a drawing of the attention inward instead of outward. Like "Oh, I haven't been paying attention to myself." The trigger moment can be a lot of things. Shifting to looking at thoughts, setting an intention to sit, remembering an inspiring teaching, or--perhaps most commonly for me--shifting my attention towards the body. Whatever moves you inward.

Basically what happens--what makes it easier post-path, or even later on pre-path and post A&P--is that your nervous system starts to produce a kind of vibrating sensation wherever you focus quiet attention. You focus on your hands, they vibrate, your head, it vibrates, your legs, they vibrate. You focus on the whole body, it vibrates. Any time you feel the vibration that follows attention you are in 1st jhana. Either the vibration is the sign you are already in, or it draws you in so fast that it is almost simultaneous (you feel it and it pulls you in).

Based on my experience and what I've heard from others, basically what causes this vibratory development is 1) it just sort of starts happening post A&P/kundalini awakening or 2) the repeated act of turning your attention away from the outer world makes it stronger and more consistent. Since the 2nd way is more reliable--you either will or won't have a massive kundalini awakening--go in again and again. Practice. I would say that the particular kind of concentration practice one does doesn't matter so much, at least not for early jhanas. The practice is just a means of altering the nervous system by going inward.

Interesting. This vibration, can you elaborate on what qualities it have?

From my own practice I can think of (so far) one sensation which seem to appear in the exact same manner time after time: This doesn't feel much like a vibration though, if so a low frequency one. What I get is a slow pleasant pulsation, it feels a bit like I unknowingly have been holding back bodily-energy, which when I reach a point in concentration, break free and starts bubbling to the surface. Is this it?

Can you feel a subtler version of this vibration in normal mode and 'follow' it to 1st jhana? When you shift your attention towards the body is it this vibration you 'aim/look' for? Do you direct attention to the vibration when you first notice it / use it as concentration object?

Interesting Mark,

I sense the flow of vibrations throughout the body at all times. When I focus just on the them , I don't immediately go into 1st jhana. When I direct the mind to 1st, the frequency of the vibrations grows slightly so that they appear to be 'stronger" somewhat and the focus is on mainly the surface of the body. The eye focus quickly shifts to look directly in front of my nose even with eyes closed. I think it is a bit more than just the vibrations but a mental focus seemingly drawing out and focusing on what appears to be a higher frequency of vibrations or making them appear to be stronger, and also the eye focus seems to be an important condition of each jhana because in each jhana, the focus both mental and physical are distinct.

But the vibrations throughout the body is a great place to launch into jhanas. I think mumuwu wrote about how Kenneth taught him to use the fact that the eyes can be focused in a specific way to trigger access to specific jhanas.

Eg, for the 1st, look directly forward maybe 15 cm in front of your nose and mentally focus on those buzzy vibrations on the very surface of the body. There is usually a sense of effort as you experience that one-pointedness focus.

For the 2nd jhana, perhaps, by relaxing your focus to directly infront of you (see the jhanic arc videos Kenneth and I did, I actually show with my hands how a number of jhanas has the eye focus shift.) and then allow for the one-pointedness focus to drop away from the 1st. Maybe mentally focus on the vibrations within the body as opposed to on the surface.

For the third jhana, you could try focusing the eyes to the periphery , around the edges of what you are looking at , or with eyes closed. And then focus on the buzzy vibrations on the surface of your limbs.

These may be good handles to develop. But this is my experience only so I dont know if it will work for you.
Nick

So to start of the concentration object is vibrations on the surface on the body + the 15cm focus (eyes open?). Also, when you focus for the 1st do you will yourself towards jhana and ignore thought completely or is it more a directing of thought, in other words: are the effort coming from the body or from the mind? Do you feel a pressure in the forehead like your frontal lobe is hard at work? Lastly when thoughts interfere do you look trough them or set them aside/refocus?

Yes Nick--these are good points and I would correct my comments based on them. I am pretty sure vibrations are there most of the time. The only reason I question that is because if I am very outwardly focused I don't notice them, just as I might forget that my knee tendonitis is there, even though it is almost always there if I focus. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it...

I also think you are definitely right that eye focus plays a role. Upon reflection, I think when I say "turning attention inward" this involves for me a kind of built up automatic eye response--sorting of like ringing Pavlov's bell--which is a lot like you (and mumuwu via Kenneth) describe jhana 1 positions. This intensifies the often otherwise sensed but usually less intense vibrations. For me though, as a lifelong kundalini guy--interpretation wise--I just so associate the whole process with experiencing vibrations that I think of meditation and vibration as often one and the same.

Mudstick--Trying to break this down a bit: There are several different types of vibrations. One of them is a kind of ongoing feeling a bit like a part of your body has gone asleep and is waking up with that tingling feeling. Except that the tingling sensation doesn't feel as coarse or forced as when you've sat too long on your legs, for instance. The meditation variety feels much more natural, pleasant, and also pervasive in the area of the body (whereas the nerves waking up version is more sporadic, painful, and focused).

This ongoing vibration feels different in the limbs than in the internal organs and the brain. There is a more fluid-y quality when it moves from the extremities into the core.

The second kind of vibration I notice is more like a pulse, as you say. There is an energetic pulse in the body that moves in the rhythm with the heart beat. When this pulse is noticed and developed, you will start to feel--in particular--your brain actually moving up and down in the skull casing, along with subtle contractions in the facial and jaw muscles. Almost like a very repetitive, very subtle kind of seizure (I actually think it is, but that's another story). You may notice your teeth gently clinching and unclinching in time with the heart beat. This is a kind of deeper layer of kundalini's development.

Importantly, the energetic feelings--particularly on the first, ongoing kind--get paradoxically more refined but also more pervasive and powerful in deeper jhanas. The vibrations sometimes turn the body into a kind of thunderous feeling or "solid mass" of vibration or energy (don't quite know how to describe it) or else into a kind of very light, energetic "mist" My experience is that the deepest insights come with the energy is wide open and misty; thunderous states are just intense but not that insightful.

Just did a sit while keeping in mind what you guys have been writing here.

At first I tried to tune in to the vibrations but couldn't really feel them. So I did normal breath and body as concentration object. After a while I began to sense a pulsation which I recognize from earlier sits, I then switched over and used that as object.

(It feels like the body is divided into layers from head to toe, and the layers are separated by barriers, this pulsation seems to be noticeable when the barriers open slightly).

The vibration/pulse feels almost like the heart beating except its more of a pulse/wave than a beat. When I kept my attention on it my body slowly started rocking back and forth (just a tiny tiny bit but noticeable), think it was in sync with the pulse but not sure. Anyway it was very sustainable to concentrate on because of the rhythm; almost like a pendulum swing. I most say one of my better sits concentration wise.

(Afterwards reality was very luminousness.)