Hello Rick,
If you've had almost thirty years experience in having been exposed to meditation and such not, you are very well positioned to make good progress in your current study of the Dhamma. You've gathered a lifetime of real world experience such that it will be very difficult to fool you about what is authentic and what is not. Use that experience wisely as you make your way through your current Dhamma studies, and insist on authenticity of instruction. Find out the difference between people's
opinions about what the Buddha taught and what he
actually taught through first hand exposure to his instruction. That way you will develop a strong foundation for your practice.
Rick Muller:
I spent ~2 months doing fairly intense concentration and insight exercises. He was part of a Theravada order whose meditation style was directed at generating the jhanas as quickly as possible, which they achieved by focusing on a crystal ball in the center of ones body, and then doing various exercises with it, making it larger/smaller, making it glow, and so on. In retrospect, it was a very good style of meditation. However, after a few months, I had a very hard time doing any meditation exercises, and ended up quitting.
One of the things I had the most trouble with was maintaining mindfulness during the day. I was instructed to keep focusing on the crystal ball throughout my daily work, studies, lectures, etc., and the strain of maintaining that focus was altogether too much for me. I felt like I was turning into a robot after a while, and stopped meditating altogether.
Your description here sounds very similar to a technique I was first taught some 32 years ago and which was based on the manipulation of a mantra (a Hindu technique) that was used as the main meditation object. After nearly 20 years of practicing that technique and finding very little success in the way of gaining insight into spiritual development, I finally decided to look more deeply into what the Buddha taught, and by that I mean going back to the very source material (the Pali canon of discourses) and starting from scratch. There's nothing like going back to "the horse's mouth" and finding out exactly what was said and taught. You might find the following thread helpful:
Essential Books from Theravadin Resources.
Perhaps like yourself, I found that the simplicity of focusing upon the breath and watching for any sensations that may arise from that practice was far more conducive and rewarding a practice than all the mental gyrations involved in moving imaginary energy around the body using a mantra. As well, it was more down to earth and grounding. The breath is always with us and can easily be used at any time to refocus one's mindfulness throughout the day.
Rick Muller:
About 7 years ago I started meditating again. I read a lot of books, among them Mindfulness in Plain English, and this gave me a good enough foundation to start daily morning meditation sessions of 30 minutes. I've done these fairly faithfully over this period. Mostly focusing on the breath and some noting practice. I also discovered Thanissaro Bhikku's Dharma talks online, which I have gotten a great deal of good advice from.
Two very good contemporary sources for instruction. Good choices.
Rick Muller:
I honestly thought this was all there was (everything there was) to meditation until I discovered this site a few weeks ago. I was curious about jhanna training. I think that I can get to jhanna 3 or 4, but I'm not sure. My meditation has been pretty intense lately, with an intense bliss that I associate with jhanna 1-2, which is followed by a dissolving of my self (jhanna 3?). Around this time I lose concentration, and have to go back to focusing on the breath, which leads to jhanna 1-2 intense bliss, followed by self dissolving, etc.
Attempting the practice of what has come to be known as
dhyana (in the original vernacular, or jhana, as its Anglicized spelling is known) in Buddhist meditation circles can sometimes be confusing and difficult to grasp. Unless one has a good analogous experience to refer to, it can be as slippery as attempting to grasp a wet fish.
You might be better off just attempting to get to whatever idea you have of what the fourth level is like than attempting to discern the intervening levels leading up to the fourth
dhyana. I say this because the more you are able to successfully practice attaining to the level of concentration necessary to maintain the fourth dhyana, the better your concentration (and hence, discernment) will become such that, on mental review after the practice, you can go back and look at the experience in retrospect and be better able to discern what occurred.
Also (and this may or may not apply to you), do not be fooled into thinking that by some "magical happening" that meditation
alone will somehow bring you to enlightenment. It is
what you do with the abilities of mind that you develop as a result of meditation and concentration practice that makes the difference in the level of attainment you ultimately reach. That development being in the dual realms of concentration ability and discernment. These two realms of development are both intimately related to one another, and can reliably correspond to the relation of the development of calm (or tranquility) and insight (or what is known as "clear seeing") — in other words,
samatha and
vipassana. Technically speaking, though, concentration (
samadhi) is more aptly related to the ability to hold the mind on an object long enough for insight about that object to develop or arise. Yet, when that concentration is able to occur within a relatively calm atmosphere, it is more likely to result in reliable insight development.
Rick Muller:
I'd like to begin more structured Dharma training, but I don't really know where to begin. I can normally get to a state where my sense of self mostly dissolves, and hold that state for a while. My plan is to focus more on jhanna traning until I'm fairly confident I can reach jhanna 4, and then use that as a base for the Dharma training. But I would be grateful for any advice people can offer. I live in Albuquerque, NM, if anyone can recommend a good Sanga here.
Your best bet for developing a more structured Dhamma training program would, of course, be to find a guide or teacher in whom you have great confidence, and to follow that person's instruction. But failing that option, the next best thing to do would be to find reliable sources within the monastic community (such as Thanissaro Bhikkhu and Henepola Gunaratana) to read, study, and to follow as best as you can, getting clarification from whatever other sources of information that you have access to (such as forums like this present one).
Although the book that Fitter Stoke suggested is a fine book as far as it goes (and may give some valuable instruction about meditation and meditation practice), it does not even begin to open up the vistas that a comprehensive study of the Dhamma through the discourses of the Buddha would open up. It all depends upon how far one wants to take this, though, and in that sense it is a decidedly personal decision. All the best to you on your journey.
In peace,
Ian