| | My teacher focuses on jhana in the "light" sense, e.g., *not* following the "if you can hear sounds you are not in jhana" rule.
The practice is different from a lot of what I read here. To start, concentration works with the hindrances as hindrances much more in that, e.g., when I sit, usually I supress the hindrances until my basis of concentration is strong enough to open to investigation while maintaining concentration. "Dry" insight, in my understanding, would mean taking the hindrances as objects from the get-go.
Likewise, there's a lot of learning involved. It is a skill and involves balancing a lot of factors and knowing how to navigate, and a lot of sorting of gross and subtle, balancing the various factors like energy and tranquility, etc. I can see how some might be frustrated with the learning time.
There's another point about jhana practice: there's a certain level of "purification of mind" (this is what the old texts say) that concentration leads to that seems independent of insight. E.g., the last retreat I went to, I spent about two days struggling to stay awake, despite lots of vigorous walking and eating less, etc. This was just garbage and "old karma" being processed--i had been working long, long hours--and concentration brings it up to clear. That's not a scientific statement but hopefully you get my drift there. |