josh r s:
i had an interesting sit just now. i tried a different interpretation of the anapanasati sutta than what i've been using, bhante vimalaramsi's of dhammasukha rather than thanissaro bhikku's. the primary difference (at least in the introductory instructions) is that he interprets the third part of the first tetrad as being aware of the whole "breath body," meaning from the beginning to the end of each in&out breath, rather than being aware of the breath throughout the whole physical body. he suggests that you dont use any specific point at which to be aware, instead just be aware of the breath wherever it is felt.
so, i tried this, basically just following the anapanasati sutta word for word but translating it as breath-body and thus not doing what i normally do where i try and feel the breath throughout the whole body. several things were much, much better using these instructions. i had no trouble with tension because somehow i caused alot of physical tension trying to spread the sensations of breath throughout the body, also as i only was alert to the breath and relaxing the body+mind rather than adjusting breath, spreading breath, thinking of breath in different ways etc. i could much more easily stay on task.
Experimentation is good! Whatever works.
Maybe the big thing that made a difference for you was
relaxing.
it took me maybe 2 minutes to get into a first-jhana that was much more concentrated and intense in pleasure than normal. it was certainly different, could this have been mctb jhana instead of sutta jhana? or was it just that i've been doing something wrong in sutta-jhana practice? i think probably the latter.
Can you describe your experience this time with respect to specific ways it differed from your normal experience? (Not how you got into it, but what it was like.)
what exactly is the difference between sutta jhana and mctb jhana?
You can think of MCTB jhana as being "samadhi with defilements as the object" or something like that.
MCTB 1st jhana has a strong sense of narrow focus and of focus being attached to a particular object
Sutta jhana has no sense of focus, but experiences present despite that
MCTB jhana has "vibratory" or grandiose pleasure (i.e. sparks, fizzles, tingles, emotional bliss)
Sutta jhana has pleasure that is completely still and unassuming (and *never* emotional or affective)
MCTB jhana is often exhilarating (exciting, sexual, "wow")
Sutta jhana is tranquil
The two forms do share jhana factors; it is as if MCTB jhana is what you would get if you were in the process of cultivating sutta jhana, but decided to embrace and exaggerate all your desire and craving for those jhana factors before you got the sutta jhana off the ground.
You can use these distinctions to clarify which is which if you can't see the attention wave clearly enough. To some extent your experience will have MCTB jhana features while your concentration is still building and pleasure is still being cultivated, but they should not be too exaggerated, and the process of building concentration and increasing pleasure will
reduce these features: you should be actively ignoring them, actively tuning into their opposite, and the more you do that, the more concentration you get.
Other signs: MCTB jhana often has a "dissociating" affective hangover (because the attention wave stays exaggerated after sitting is over), MCTB jhana often seems boring or unsatisfactory after awhile, MCTB jhana
feels like you entered an altered state of consciousness, MCTB jhana has a sense of focus (wide or narrow), MCTB jhana allows you to "focus on the jhana" (= focus on the sense of focus, focus on the attention wave).
A dead giveaway for MCTB jhana is the ability to do the following sort of thing:
MCTB:
As before, if the student wishes to go on to the fourth jhana, then they just cultivate the third jhana and begin to pay attention to the fact that even the bodily bliss is somewhat irritating or noisy.
Only the attention wave is irritating or noisy; the jhana factors (piti / sukha / upekkha) are wholesome in every way that a normal experience can be. Higher sutta jhanas are more "refined" and so may be thought of as better or more enjoyable for that reason, but none of the sutta jhanas, and none of the jhana factors, will be experienced as actively unpleasant. (What is being observed in the MCTB case is that craving for pleasure is unsatisfactory; when one gets tired of craving for pleasure, one will move on to craving for something else.)
Does that help clarify your experience?