Hello everyone,

What is the general correlation between happiness and enlightenment? I think I am a happier person after attaining stream entry but there is still so much pain and sadness in daily life. Does increased perceptual ability have little to do with the types of emotions one feels daily? I am beginning to think that AF is the only ("spiritually speaking") way to never ending happiness/peace as there is no being whatsoever. Because one feels sensations, there must be suffering (one of the three characteristics)/an uncomfortable sensation always present. Therefore, having no being translates to no suffering, where as any stage of enlightenment will always incur some suffering/sadness.

Adam

The training, as Gotama designed it, is a gradual path. Are you following Gotama's path or someone else's?

At any rate, one's emotions are synonymous with the asavas or the influxes, a group of defilements generally characterized by sensual passion, states of being, wrong views, and ignorance. Within these four groups one finds the origin of all human suffering. The asavas need to be overcome and let go of. This is a gradual process. It doesn't take place overnight in a flash of satori-like awakening. The asavas need to be examined during contemplation and let go of one by one. This can only occur when the mind is relatively at ease, stable, calm, and able to clearly comprehend the truth about phenomena. Also Right View needs to be established. Without Right View, the asavas can remain in place, continuing to vex the mind. So, the first asava to correct is wrong view.


The path that Gotama taught is a Middle Way between eternalism and annihilationism. What you are speaking about above ("having no being") amounts to clinging to the annihilation of being. Yet, as long as one possesses a body in this existential world, one will continue to "be" no matter how much one wishes to deny that fact and live in denial. What one can do is to stop clinging to "becoming." That comes with wisdom. With understanding the process of becoming, its arising, its duration, and its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation.

In my experience, I found a positive, gradual correlation. It's not an overnight thing.

Have you noticed for instance, since stream entry, that you have a better understanding of where things come from? For instance in conversations some person might feel "insulted," and will say "you are insulting me," as if that feeling was caused by some external agent; after stream entry, it became very clear that this kind of feeling response was a habitual internal reaction. I can't count the number of times that was helpful to me, in dealing with other people better.

And after third path (or whatever shift happened to me in november), for instance, sadness somehow stopped having a "hold." I would sometimes get into these sad moods, which would last for days, and I would victimize myself over and over ("why me?"), until I got pulled out of them by circumstance. But nowadays, sadness has so little credibility with me, that when having such an episode is not only very rare, but it is over in a matter of hours.

And there's more goodies, like a super clean perception, an understanding of the psyche, increased patience, utter lack of boredom (for one can always meditate), etc...

Yes I have noticed an increased ability to perceive the emotions of others as if it is an arising sensation in my field of awareness that I can pick up. Some sensations/emotions are more subtle and obscure than others and sometimes I just don't pay attention but I have a sense that the emotions that are sensations in others bodies are not exclusive to them.

I guess (I know) I need to continue practicing and reach higher levels of attainment to eradicate sadness or have it loose its hold on me. Right now, I am currently trying to master the first four jhanas but they always seem a little ambiguous like I cannot tell when I am in first or second or if I begin to meditate, I cannot tell which jhana I am in. I probably just need to keep practicing to lessen each jhana's ambiguity. Can you be in the fourth Jhana without trying and then realize your in the fourth jhana? As you cycle throughout the day, do you change jhanas as well?

Adam

It happens when I'm high. I'll just start staring at something, then I'll start going up the jhanas. i think i even got to 7th that way! pretty interesting..

but in daily life, not really. unless you just start staring at a point and don't realize you're doing it, but not while moving around. i might get into 1st sometimes - start feeling really pleasant body sensations, but not past that..

This is a common perception when practicing for mastering the jhanas. It has taken me several years of practice, strengthening my discernment, to be able to discern if or when I am in them at times. The best advice I can give when you're in this in-between stage is to not be too concerned with being able to figure out how you got "there." Just use the "there" as a tool to help you make progress on other fronts.

Being able to discern the different levels of the first four jhanas depends a great deal on how you entered them in the first place, what instruction you followed or if you just allowed the "current" to carry you along. By that I mean, were you aware of initiating changes as you transitioned from one to the next. If you weren't aware of the changes then don't fret about it. Just use the state to accomplish whatever work you set out to accomplish.

Generally speaking, they tend to be more discernible when you consciously go through each one, one at a time at the moment of initiating them. In its samatha form, the fourth jhana is particularly distinct for its profound calmness and the stillness of mental movement combining with mindfulness and equanimity. From this point, simply inclining the mind toward a mental subject for study and examination (as in satipatthana practice) will yield insight results.


You are better off simply recognizing that jhana is just a more concentrated level of samadhi. If samadhi is "concentration" then jhana is appana samadhi or "fixed concentration." It takes being able to attain samadhi first in order to deepen it into jhana. If you can first sense the mind's having attained to concentration (uninterrupted attention on an object), then appana samadhi deepens the mind's hold on that object. In that sense, then, the term "absorbed" may be perceived as being synonymous with the terms appana samadhi and jhana.

When you "feel" or sense that the mind is "fixed" in concentration on an object, that's jhana. From that point, use it to discern the truths of the Dhamma.

Would you say that there is an increase in intelligence with stream entry/further paths? Super clear perception sounds like it would make thinking about logical matters much easier.