| | Hi John,
I'd like to mention that Jack Kornfield wrote a book called "Modern Buddhist Masters" in which some very famous and well regarded meditation practitioners have quite divergeant views of what jhana is and how the jhanas are defined--- even if they are using the same descriptions of jhana (mental concentration states) from the Pali canon.
So it is certainly okay to train in one teacher's way, but to not be too gripping of "This happens in jhana, this does not". Teachers do say theses things, but over time a person learns well-regarded teachers are saying contradictory things, even opposing each other, sometimes in veiled ways. One teacher says, "If someone tells you you cannot hear in jhana, they are wrong" and other teacher will say, "If you can hear, you are not in jhana!" I have sat with some of the famed folk and learned: this is own practice, own investigation. If one practices well, there is comfort in being independent of deemed teachers-- though I am grateful to many deemed teachers who were available to me at the outset and I have my one or two go-to teachers who are still just natively the ones I listen to or I pose questions to-- and just learning, just curiosity, not presuming or declaring or grabbing the "raft" shaking it and saying this is what happens in fourth, etc. One can just practice and not know.
And one can just use these maps as helpful orientation amid the vast ocean of mental terrain, as if the mind were a giant mall and it's relaxing to have a "you are here" sticker, and that orientation alleviates some major exhausting searching for a while by giving the mind a useful directionality. So jhana training is useful and positive-direction (not harmful, yes helpful) mental development. It can be a stressors if one gets caught up in views of it.
Edit: For me, John, when there is comfort in sitting at length, that is the start of 3rd jhana, called sukkha, which is often translated as "ease" or "comfort" or "contentment".
And, for me, 4th jhana (a mentally focused state wherein the mind is still generating and/or knowing forms it detects through the senses (including the sense of consciousness), but mind is not also not making itself separate from form) is pure equanimity; there is no ego, no I, no central part. There is just attention-magnetized-with-objects, attention-bridge.
This is your study though. Good luck.
(edited to reduce this a lot) |