Shamatha checkup

Hi guys, hope everyone is well.

I think I've gotten the hang of the jhanas. Here's my question: Am I on the right track? Or am I just getting fooled by red herrings, or perhaps making things up?

To enable you to answer that question, I've erred on the side of too much detail in the first four jhanas. If you don't want to read all these posts, please feel free to skip to the formless jhanas in the 3rd post. They're the ones that concern me; I'm more confident about the formed jhanas.

I'll start with how I experience access concentration. By doing progressive muscle relaxation and relaxed breathing, the mind becomes tranquil and less jumpy. The mind sometimes gets briefly distracted, but it maintains a background awareness of the meditation object that lasts long enough for me to restore the focus. So, there's a continuity of awareness on the object, even if it ebbs and flows.

The first jhana is made of excitement. The mind and body are very energized, like with a mild adrenaline rush. The mind tries to stay tightly fixed on one target, but it tends to get distracted because of the agitation. So I (specifically, the thing that seems like it's "in control" of other parts of the mind) must supervise the attention, and keep resetting the mind onto the desired focus. Here, the focus is usually:

-The center of a kasina
-A specific part of my face (in a big doofy grin)
-The mental sensation of excited joy
-The feeling of effort itself, which is a tension-like feeling in the "third eye" area.
(I've checked, and no muscles seem to be contracting. The tension is actually a mental "pressure" trying to hold the squirming, hyperactive mind in place by "pressing" it onto the meditation object. It can press more or less tightly, and if I press too hard it causes a mild headache.)

The second jhana calms the body and mind. The joy flows gently but swiftly -- it's like a boat floating down a river with a strong, steady current whereas the first jhana is more like whitewater rafting. To get to the second jhana, I stop using effort to micromanage my attention span. Instead of forcing my mind onto the object, I let it show itself. The focus widens, e.g. from my right cheek to my entire face. This state has strong joy and strong satisfaction. It sometimes excites my libido, unlike every other jhana.

The third jhana begins when my face softens from "big grin" to "buddha statue half-smile." The mind and body relax dramatically and the joy fades away. Now the mind fills with satisfied contentment and peaceful stillness. The focus widens, and there's not necessarily a "primary object" anymore. The mind may lazily notice tingles moving across my skin, then the fluttering of my eyelids, then the breath. Or, I can focus on one of the third jhana factors itself, which deepens the concentration.

In the fourth jhana, stillness and relaxation reach maximum. I stop smiling completely as the bliss fades away, as does the laziness of the third jhana. The mind sinks down into an odd mix of profound wakefulness and profound sedation. It SEEMS like I'm simultaneously noticing all of my sense inputs in this state. Only the sedation keeps me safe from sensory overload. (In reality, I don't notice everything at once. But my attention span sure feels panoramic.)

Next, the arupa jhanas.

If I'm in the fourth jhana and decide to move to the fifth, my vision changes. If my eyes are closed in the fourth jhana, I see the ambient light passing through the backs of my eyelids. In the fifth jhana, it goes pitch black. It's like I'm seeing into a void. Sometimes it feels like the boundaries of my body smear and project outwards, though not infinitely.

The fifth jhana is dark, and not just visually -- sometimes I notice a vague background sense of foreboding, as if peering into a deep chasm. Have you ever noticed the sensation you have while drifting off to sleep, right BEFORE you the falling sensation that jerks you awake? It's a lot like that state.

If I resolve to enter the sixth jhana, it feels/looks like the top of my head opens up to let the mind expand. The boundaries of my mind smear and radiate up and out. The psychedelic artist Alex Gray draws what this feels like:
www.findingshannon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/alex_gray.gif
Notice the orange thing spreading up and out of the top of the head.
The darkness of the fifth jhana leaves. While equanimity dominates all the arupa jhanas, the sixth jhana is more light-hearted than the fifth.

Next, there's something I assume is the seventh jhana. The mind is still receiving all the sense inputs, but it's like they're all marked "unimportant" or "not what I'm looking for." So the focus of attention is... nowhere. There is definitely a focus, but it isn't on anything. This is different from the fourth jhana where the focus is on everything, i.e. all the sense inputs are marked "yes, this is what I'm looking for."

...

Finally, there's what I assume to be the 8th jhana. I can't get into any of the hard arupa jhanas, but when I resolve to enter the 8th jhana then something happens which is different from all the other jhanas I know of.

Have you ever driven a stick-shift? The 8th jhana feels like I've pressed the clutch on my mind. Yeah, the engine is still running, and the car is still moving, but the engine isn't connected to the transmission. (Or whatever. I don't know how cars work.) In the same way, the 8th jhana disengages the mind from the sense inputs. The mind is still running, and the sense inputs are still happening, but something stops. It's the thing that engages the mind with the sense inputs. This is not like the seventh jhana where the mind is noticing the perception of nothingness. In the 8th jhana, I would be inclined to say that there isn't any "noticing," except I'm absolutely not unconscious.

Also, since the jhana isn't hard, there's a bit of a "wobble" of the mind alternating between jhana and normal consciousness. This applies to all the jhanas, but is particularly noticeable in the 7th and 8th.

It's hard to explain the difference between the 7th and 8th. The "not attending to anything" explanation above might also work for the 8th, so maybe it's a poor explanation.

Still, there's one thing that happens when I decide to perceive nothingness, and there's something different that happens when I decide to disengage perception. It doesn't come to a screeching halt like anesthesia or NS, but it's coasting along without investing any energy in what's going on.

So, what do you think? Do I have the right arupa jhanas, or am I lost in la-la land?

Sounds like solid practice to me mate, I'm focusing on samatha right now and what you're saying fits in nicely with what's going on for me. Have you checked out Kenneth and Nick's guided tour of the jhanas? It's hugely useful.

All sounding familiar except part of your description of 6th Jhana. 6th has a similar feel to the witness for me. It seems more centered around the eyes/back of the head (not so much the crown). It is, however, brighter than the 5th.

I found a good way of picking it out initially was to inquire into who/what is conscious of the space of the 5th Jhana. This causes the experience to loop back to the witness point in some way.

Hi mumuwu,

I'm not familiar with the witness. If I ask "who am I?" or "who is experiencing this?" nothing happens. But when I resolve to do sixth jhana, it feels like the space fills with "me-ness" that comes from the center of the brain and radiates outward.

I've found another Alex Gray picture that shows the me-feeling much better than the earlier painting: shop.cosm.org/images/products/detail/SES%20WEB.jpg

See the purple light at the forehead? It feels like that's where "I" live, as the "me-feeling" is strongest there. When I attempt sixth jhana, the me-feeling becomes very lively and energetic. It projects up from the top of the head and curves around to fill the space, like the "field lines" in Alex's painting.

Is this the Witness?

Well, that seems a lot more like it to me as well.

Try staying with that me-ness as you go up/back down the arc. The witness is available all the time (in all the jhanas) but particularly pronounced in 6th Jhana which is why it's a very handy way of pointing it out. It sounds like you are in the right territory.

When holding onto it, I find that the eyes tend to look straight ahead.

Ooh, last night I noticed the me-feeling in the background of the 4th and 7th jhanas.

This is so surreal. I couldn't access any formless realms just a few days ago. Then, sitting in the 4th jhana, I resolved to access them, and boom! Resolutions are crazy. I suppose that's how I'll stick with the witness across the jhanic arc, huh? Just resolve it from the 4th and let it happen?