Jhana for vipassana yogis: diagnosis and prescription
So you want to experience jhana. You have been up and down through various states of concentration for years. Why, then, do you experience concentration as a seamless flow of states with no "hard edges," as opposed to the discrete states of jhana that people seem to be talking about?
Diagnosis: You are practicing vipassana, as opposed to samatha (pure concentration). There is nothing wrong with that, to be sure, but they are two different techniques that lead to very different experiences.
Prognosis: Excellent. You will begin experiencing discreet jhanas as soon as you clearly apply the samatha technique.
Prescription: Practice samatha, as described below.
To conceptually differentiate samatha and vipassana, imagine a pillow case with some mystery object inside. As a vipassana practitioner, you know that your job is to probe, tickle, rub, shake, hoist, palpate, and otherwise explore the pillow case-covered object until it reveals all of its secrets. You want to become an expert on whatever is inside, never being deceived by the apparent solidity of the pillow case.
To practice samatha is completely different. You simply rest your hand lightly on the pillow case and leave it there. If it moves, follow it. You don't care what is inside. You don't want to know. The more solid it appears, the better you like it. The last thing you want to do is to penetrate the object. The difference between samatha and vipassana will become more and more apparent if you set out with the intention of exploring both techniques side by side, with an eye toward comparing and contrasting them.
The intensity of samatha jhana is infinitely variable, from light, or what I think of as "soft," through "firm," "hard," and "rock solid." For this idea we could use the analogy of a portable radio. You can dial to a given station, but depending on the various factors like how much background noise there is, and how much juice is in the battery, the broadcast may be loud and clear, or dim and fuzzy. In either case, you are on the right station.
"Hard jhana" is what happens when the mind "locks onto" a jhana. The "locking on" happens on its own as soon as the conditions are right. It is experienced as a subtle but distinct perceptual shift. Before the shift, you are outside the jhana, just visiting the frequency or stratum of mind where it lives. As soon as the shift occurs, you are inside the jhana, abiding in an altered state. How long the state lasts depends upon your concentration and your intention, i.e. how long you resolved, in advance, to dwell in the jhana.
The traditional teaching of jhanic factors is complex, so I have simplified it for my own use and for sharing with others. Below is my version for the four rupa (material) jhanas. They are called material jhanas to distinguish them from the four arupa or immaterial jhanas. I call the first four "body jhanas" as they are dominated by physical sensations. Although all eight have both physical and mental properties, physicality dominates in the first four and mentality dominates in numbers five through eight.
1st jhana has subtle exhilaration, deep joy, chilled out bliss, and equanimity.
2nd jhana has deep joy, chilled out bliss, and equanimity.
3rd jhana has chilled out bliss and equanimity.
4th jhana has equanimity.
As Bill Hamilton used to say, jhanas are defined by what is lost as you go up the ladder from one jhana to the next. The following example will serve to illustrate the process:
Although jhanas are defined by what is lost as you go from one to the next, there is always a predominant jhanic factor. That is because the jhanas start out relatively coarse and become ever more subtle.
Imagine that you are in a room with four scents, all together:
1. Freshly baked bread.
2. Garlic.
3. Chocolate.
4. Vanilla.
In the first jhana of scents (the jhanas of scents are made up for this analogy), when all four scents are present, the most obvious will be freshly baked bread. In fact, it is so "in your face" that the others won't even be noticed.
The second jhana of scents arises when the freshly baked bread factor disappears. Only now do you begin to notice the garlic.
When garlic is no longer present, you can smell chocolate, and you are in the third scent jhana.
Finally, when chocolate is removed, you are able to perceive the subtle scent of vanilla, and have attained the fourth jhana of scents.
Interestingly, we talk about the jhanic factors disappearing one by one, but that's not really what is happening. Where would they go?
More accurately, the mind is moving through layers of perception, each of which is more subtle than the previous. So even though all of the jhanic factors are present in the first jhana, the observing mind is at a relatively coarse level. It is not just that the subtle factors are drowned out by the gross; it is also the fact that at this level the subtle factors cannot be perceived. When we go from the first jhana to the second, it is not that the gross factors have gone anywhere. We are just focusing the mind at a level that does not pick up coarseness.
Can phenomena so subtle as the jhanas can really be experienced with precision as discreet states? The answer is an emphatic yes, and this, for me is one of the most wonderful things about them. To read two thousand-year-old descriptions of jhanas and to realize that they line up exactly with my own experience is at once humbling and empowering. It gives me a felt connection to my heritage as a human being that few other things do.
But once the jhanas have been discovered and identified, how can they be further developed? This can best be explained starting with a discussion of the four parameters for mastery of jhana, as described in the masterpiece of Theravada Buddhist commentary, the Vissudhimagga.
The four parameters are:
1. Adverting to the jhana.
2. Entering the jhana.
3. Abiding in the jhana.
4. Exiting the jhana.
Adverting to the jhana literally means "looking at" it. Each jhana has its unique characteristics. Once you have become familiar with the characteristic flavor of, for example, the first jhana, you can go to the place in the mind where that jhana "lives" just by thinking about it, or as Sayadaw U Kundala so elegantly put it, by "inclining the mind toward it." How do you do this? The same way you would incline your mind toward the kitchen, or the bathroom. You just think about it. But, as jhana is a mental event, and mental events move at the speed of thought, to bring to mind the first jhana is to immediately focus the mind at the stratum of mind where the first jhana lives. When you do this, you have adverted to the jhana. You know that you are at the correct stratum of mind if the body sensations and mental phenomena that you have come to associate with the first jhana arise. If they do not, you are distracted, and have only to focus more diligently to coax the jhana into existence.
How can you learn to tell one jhana from another? By repetition, context, process of elimination, and by relying upon other people's descriptions. The jhanas naturally arise in order. It is good to begin with a firm foundation in the first jhana because it is the easiest to attain, and because once you have clearly identified it, you can use it as a landmark to find the others. If, for example, you are practicing the first jhana and a new and different jhana suddenly arises, chances are it is the second. The second is adjacent to the first, so if you slip out of the first, but remain concentrated, chances are you will move on to the second. This is, in fact, very common. If you just make a resolution to concentrate, and enter jhanas as they naturally arise, you will enter them in order, one through eight.
Here is a tip for attaining and staying in the first jhana: Lightly pinch the tip of your nose with an imaginary thumb and forefinger and hold on. As long as you maintain that little bit of effort to pinch your nose, the only jhana you can possibly be in (assuming you are in a jhana, of course) is the first. You would have to let go of your nose and sink into the object (in this case, the sensations of the nose) in order to move on to the second jhana.
Entering the jhana is just as it sounds. This is where the subtle perceptual shift happens. Ping! You are "in" the jhana. It feels distinctly "locked in."
Abiding in the jhana. This refers to the amount of time you spend locked in. There are no theoretical upper or lower limits to how long you can stay locked in. It could be five seconds or five days. This amount of time is determined both by the intention you had going in, and the amount of concentration that you can bring to bear on the task. It is much easier to spend five seconds in a jhana than to spend five days in a jhana, a heroic feat that would require a prodigious amount of concentration. I have never spent more than several hours in any one jhana.
My understanding is that, as with many other pursuits, individuals have varying gifts. Some people can effortlessly spend many hours dwelling in one jhana, but may have difficulty in "jhana jumping" from one to the next. For some people it's the other way around. As there are four parameters for mastery of a jhana, different people will gravitate to different practices. Some jhana masters don't even consider that a yogi has attained a jhana unless he can spend some period of hours locked into it without wandering mind, etc. I consider this an extreme point of view. It would be like saying you aren't really riding a bicycle unless you ride it for a hundred miles. The billions of people who ride bicycles regularly might dispute that definition. My guess is that people tend to teach their strengths.
Exiting the jhana. This one is pretty clear. You want to gain conscious control over how and when you exit the jhana, so you aren't just floating about aimlessly. (There is a place for aimless floating, but formal jhana practice is by nature, well... formal.) Actually, exiting isn't as easy as it sounds, because once you lock in you can get seduced into hanging around, as it is so pleasant. This is where addhitana (resolution, one of the ten perfections of Buddahood) comes into play. If you have resolved, before entering the jhana, to exit after, let's say five minutes, you will find that the jhana dissolves after five minutes, like it or not. It's really quite amazing how well these resolutions work, and you learn to trust them more and more.
All four of the parameters work together and each one can be individually targeted for additional development.
Name that chord
Years ago, when I was a professional musician in Los Angeles, I was sitting around with one of my band mates, a piano player, when I decided to give him a little quiz. I sat down at the piano, made sure he was turned away so that he could not see my hands, and played a chord. "Hey," I said, "what kind of chord is this?"
"Minor seven flat five."
Impressed, I offered him another. "What about this?"
"That's a major nine chord."
"That's amazing," I told him. While I had been a professional bass player for years, I was not a piano player, and did not have anywhere near my friend's facility for distinguishing one chord type from another, especially outside the context of a song. "How do you do that?"
"Well, I guess after you hear something a million times, you just know what it sounds like," he replied.
It's the same with jhanas. You can tell one from another because you see them arise, in the same order, time after time. And because you have the descriptions and maps, you know what to expect, e.g. subtle exhilaration, deep joy, etc. The key, though, is the samatha technique. It is important to lock into the jhana so that it will "stand still" for you. Just as, with music, if chords were always morphing into each other in a smooth flow it would be hard to distinguish one from the other... if you always access the strata of mind via the vipassana technique it will be hard to identify and systematically revisit the strata.