There seems to be 2 ways to play this: 1. Focus on the jhana factors (keeping the breath in the background) to work up through the samatha-vipassana* jhanas or 2. just keep focusing on the breath to the exclusion of all else.
#1 seems very efficient. Little mind wandering, fun to do.
#2 seems quite hard. Lots of wandering, not much fun.
I guess it is a choice between a changing object and a static object. #1 allows for a lot of exploration: expanding, contracting, fizzing (at varying frequencies), the rise of jhana factors, the calming of those factors etc etc. With #2 some of those early jhana factors kind of blip past fairly quickly. There's plenty happening in the body still, but concentrating purely on the breath means kind of ignoring them, or at least keeping them in the background.
Seems we have a clear winner. But I wonder if I might be missing a trick or three...
What are your experiences of navigating through the samatha-vipassana jhanas?
* By samatha-vipassana jhana i mean what appear to be the stages of insight combined with the samatha jhana factors - nanas 1-3 = 1st sv jhana, 4 = 2nd, 5-10 =3rd, 11+ = 4th
