breath jhana vs kasina jhana

After quesitoning Aquanin and watching the Kenneth and Nick videos on the jhanas, I am wondering how much difference there can be between closed-eyed breath based cultivation of the jhanas and open-eyed looking at a kasina jhana practice. I'm not saying there are no similarities, but my experiences are quite different. This might be because I am not actually reaching the jhanas at all. I don't know. Maybe someone who first learned to traverse the jhanas using a kasina could weigh in.

The most striking difference is that I don't feel bliss or bodily vibrations at all. I do feel the spaciousness and the changing in focus from one locus to another, and then to no locus at all. I do sense the expansion, and the later no-object awareness. Many things seem similar, but the stages are not nearly so distinct for me using the kasina. Is this just because the methods are different, or is it because I am not nearly as developed, or maybe both?

I am wondering if I shouldn't drop the whole kasina thing and just start following the standard approach, which would hopefully give me the more standard results and put me on a map that I can understand and follow. Maybe if I adopted a closed-eyes, breath based, noting practice it would be easier for others to help me along.

Or I can just persist with the kasina and see where that leads. I can't really complain with the results so far, except that more and more it becomes dreadfully uneventful and boring. I don't have any A&P flashes or bright lights, I don't notice cycling through the stages most of the time, I don't experience these clear-cut jhanas with bliss or feelings of "infinite" space or consciousness -- I feel the expansion of space and consciousness, but I wouldn't call it infinite.

I've been sitting with the kasina an hour a day for six months. Does anyone else have this kind of experience with the kasina?

Someone with more experience here can chime in better than myself but I will give this a shot.

First of all, I have never tried Kasina practice but it is a concentration practice just like anapanasati or concentrating on the breath. I think what you might mean here is the differences in the concentration jhanas (absorptions) and the vipassana jhanas which most people here talk about. I experienced deep absorptions in concentration jhanas when I used to do only concentration practice and, to me, it is different that the vipassana jhanas I experience now even though as my concentration increases my level of absorption increases. While the factors are the similar between the two, in my experience, the vipassana jhanas are less about full blown absorption and still about seeing the jhana factors while still observing the 3C's in a way. You can see how Kenneth and Nick can still talk and explain what is going on while experiencing jhanas.

Read the chapters in MCTB about concentration jhanas and then on vipassana jhanas if you can. Maybe that will help. Once again. I am not jhana expert by any means, but doing concentration practice leads to a different type of state than vipassana to me at least. Anyone else want to chime in?

I just reread my post and I don't know if it makes much sense. I was really spacey (after meditation) when writing it. I guess I was really just trying to talk about "hard" jhana vs. "soft" jhana. Someone else chime in please

In my experience a jhana is a jhana is a jhana, however it is invoked. Jhanas are mind states that are endemic to and reflective of certain conditions in the mind/brain. If they seem different it is, at least in my experience, due to some exogenous factor that is also affecting the mind. And yes, this is a "squishy" answer that won't satisfy if you're looking for a definitive version of things. But... I doubt there is a final, right or ultimately correct answer to your question, jwhooper.

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I'm thinking about doing the same for my post My answer totally came out wrong. I was really meaning to say that what I used to experience was a "hard" jhana (full absorption), doing only concentration practice, but now they are "softer" and I can investigate more while in them. However, like Chris said. They have the same characteristics in each jhana.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Deeper+Into+Jhana

I've done very little kasina work, so I can't address that part of your query. But regarding "I don't feel bliss": I can say that the emotional markers that are often listed for the jhanas (such as Kenneth's "subtle exhilaration, deep joy, chilled out bliss, and equanimity" for J1) really don't have consistent relevance for me, aside from the clear equanimity of J4.

So for me, things like different widths of focus, the center-smooth / doughnut face of J3, and the different degrees of spaciousness are my very consistent landmarks, but the emotional characteristics are not. And A&P doesn't always (or even often) have to be a flashy affair. And IMHO 'vibrations' really is a vague term and potentially misleading; I think for many people, J2, for example, might include 'lots of generally pleasant tingling on the surface most everywhere, particularly on the face'. That doesn't sound nearly so mysterious as "vibrations".

In other words, the difference between your experiences and the common descriptions you read might not have anything to do with the kasina approach vs. a breath approach. I suspect that we all have to identify our own connections with the range of possible symptoms of a given jhana, using accumulated experience and context clues to gradually figure it out. Of course, more extended sits, where concentration gains a lot of strength and momentum, can reveal clearer and more distinct jhana signatures.

Also: if you've only been at this for six months(?), you might want to be ultra-wary towards the idea that you are reaching J5. (But even there, I'll risk over-reaching and suggest the possibility that the word 'infinite' is misleading and overblown.)

Your 'persist and see where it leads' strategy seems like a great idea to me. As does balancing the kasina work with noting work.

Actually I've been at this for over 30 years, off and on. I only started this kind of formal practice six months ago. I think all of my past practices muddy the water, so it is really hard for me to tell where I am. I guess it will all become clear eventually.

in my own practice i found that jhanas that i was in from kasina practice seemed more cerebral somehow and without the feeling parts of the jhanas.
this is at the level of light absorption, i think once you get in deep they would be the same. i don't do kasina any more because my eyes got too sore.

by the way, there is an interesting thread on here somewhere about accessing jhanas by eye focus.

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by the way, there is an interesting thread on here somewhere about accessing jhanas by eye focus.
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kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/42...as+1-4+via+Eye+Focus

In the beginning it was like that, with the eyes crossing and the kasina image splitting and eventually moving very far apart with diffuse focus. Now, for at least a month or two, the kasina splits but doesn't move far apart anymore. The images just stay side by side, with a small gap between them. Focus is usually panoramic, and often my attention feels detached, like instead of observing I am just part of it all. At times, even the perception that there are objects melts away, and at that point it becomes impossible to note, because there aren't any objects. Then it can become completely empty.

For some reason I haven't seemed to move into what I assume are higher jhanas lately, the no-objects and emptiness. I'm trying to get over being so goal oriented though, so now I'm just relaxing and investigating whatever comes. Still, I am ever curious.