How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Stian Gudmundsen Høiland, modified 12 Years ago at 8/9/11 9:01 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 8/9/11 9:00 PM

How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 296 Join Date: 9/5/10 Recent Posts
Hey there!

I want to initiate an opportunity to share and collect the different ways that people induce piti for entering jhana.

What are the things that you think about or notice in (samatha) meditation that creates piti for you?

What beautiful and/or interesting things does it for you? Don't be sparse with details!
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Bruno Loff, modified 12 Years ago at 8/10/11 7:18 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 8/10/11 7:18 AM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

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Let me just say as a curiosity about my own practice, that ever since I've had a big kundalini burst after stream entry, when all of it settled down, I have been mostly unable to produce bliss in any consistent way. There will be five minutes here, five minutes there, but it feels a bit as if I have "run out," and became "dry".

While this seems to make vipassana practice a bit harder (speculating here), it doesn't seem to interfere with actualism so much, as felicity, it turns out, doesn't require the blissful/energetic kind of pleasure which I associate with the word piti.
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tom moylan, modified 12 Years ago at 8/15/11 9:20 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 8/15/11 9:20 AM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 896 Join Date: 3/7/11 Recent Posts
Howdy,
i recently did a self-retreat. before that i had no access to the jhanas. after securing them though, i knew that i had been in these states before but just couldn't place and order them due to knot knowing exactly how "piti" manifested for me. not knowing that was basically the missing link to jhana access in a consistent and progressive way.

after listening to a dharma talk on the jhanas on my first night, i practiced exactly according to the instructions. as one aspect / description of piti happens to be "hair standing up", when facial tingling began (as usual for me) to arise i followed that feeling up to my hairline and gave it a bit of an intentional shove. simultaneous to that i noticed a pleasant feeling, a sort of lulling throb in my brain stem area and procedded to "massage" that pulseing / throbbing giving alternating attention to the pulsing and the piti.

after sustaining that for say 10 - 15 minutes much of the mind chatter dropped away.:first jhana
further, just as in the instructions, the pleasant state was self-sustaining and the vitaka - vicara dropped away on its own
so: second jhana.

since third jhana was just focusing on the pleasure of the state, the piti fell away on its own with continued focus on the pleasure. third jhana.

fourth required a little more effort to let go of the pleasure but that happened too.

i would caution people not to do what i did, namely to hop right from 1st to 2nd to 3rd etc. as that is not the advised method. one is encouraged to master each stage first before moving on. i was exhilerated to finally understand what the instructions actually felt like and wanted to test them out to see whether i had it or not. i had.
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Bruno Loff, modified 12 Years ago at 8/15/11 10:48 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 8/15/11 10:48 AM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

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tom moylan:
one is encouraged to master each stage first before moving on.


It depends on who is doing the encouraging. Check out Kenneth Folk's Dynamic Jhana vs Static Jhana page.
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tom moylan, modified 12 Years ago at 8/15/11 11:01 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 8/15/11 11:01 AM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 896 Join Date: 3/7/11 Recent Posts
hi bruno,
i love how you put things. my reference was to gotamas "foolish cow" analogy of one at first attaining a jhana rushing off to the next one and being unable to find their way back because they were not attentive to the entrance to it.

coincidentally, your link is very timely for this particular cow so thanks!

tom
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 8/18/11 1:03 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 8/18/11 1:03 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
visualization helps for me. ill just imagine really enjoying something delicate and smooth. or like i will mentally caress my body in a very 'heavy' kind of way. sometimes ill get a lot of piti in my face and my lids will droop and it's like heavy-lidded pleasure. and i just focus on the enjoyment of it, on the enjoyment of moving, but in a 'heavy' kind of way. this leads to bliss, not felicity, but when i've been able to do it it's been helpful at breaking apart the stranglehold of certain emotions/'negative' sensations

also i found taking 5-htp helped a bit. i think (note: not a doctor so this has no basis in actuality) it's figuring out how to trigger a kind of serotonin release, so if you have low serotonin levels it might be harder.
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Chris G, modified 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 7:55 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 4:34 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 118 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
I find metta meditation, or metta-like meditation, to be a very reliable way to induce piti. Now, pretty much as soon as I sit down, even before I start trying to meditate, happiness & piti start to arise. This is after about 1-2 months of practice. I've been using instructions at Ron Crouch's website for "classic" metta as a guideline, while allowing myself to experiment.

There is a lot to explore in metta meditation. Different thoughts (e.g. friendliness, good will, care & concern, love, sympathetic joy, ...) often give rise to different feelings. I've noticed piti, sukha, and metta all as distinct feelings that can come up, all well before I get near jhana. I'm just starting to explore the interaction of this practice with the hindrances.

One thing I've been doing is just creating piti and sitting with it, stabilizing it, developing it, and enjoying it, with the thought of reinforcing the neural pathways or channels which allow me to experience happiness. The Buddha instructs:

Then you should train yourself thus: 'Good-will, as my awareness-release, will be developed, pursued, handed the reins and taken as a basis, given a grounding, steadied, consolidated, & well-undertaken.'


I've noticed my behavior change a bit from this, in that I've found myself being friendlier to people, approaching more. There is one person around which I've had some dislike for (simply due to his personality) and one night I simply started interacting with him in a friendly manner, without having to force it. I've also notice a few people seem happier to interact with me these days.

However, piti is kind of a rough, gross form of happiness. It's a bit edgy, even tiring at times. I'm finding I can experience it simultaneously with negative emotions. It's not peace. Compared to depression, or sensual addictions, it's a big improvement. Compared to the PCE (or at least the experiences I've had which seem to resemble PCEs), it's not so great. But I think it's been useful, and will still be for a while.
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josh r s, modified 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 8:36 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 8:36 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 337 Join Date: 9/16/11 Recent Posts
pay attention to the breath energy in your bones, i.e. pay attention to proprioception, conceptualizing it as breath
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland, modified 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 4:28 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 4:28 AM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 296 Join Date: 9/5/10 Recent Posts
josh r s:
(...) pay attention to proprioception, conceptualizing it as breath


I read the Wikipedia article on proprioception, but I still don't quite understand what you are getting at here.

josh r s:
pay attention to the breath energy in your bones (...)


I understand that this is an elaboration of the first quote, but I don't understand. Care to elaborate more/differently?
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josh r s, modified 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 10:26 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 10:25 AM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 337 Join Date: 9/16/11 Recent Posts
proprioception is just that feeling of the body from within the body, the way you locate different parts of your body relative to each other. you are aware of these feelings right? they seem very obvious to me at the moment but maybe they wouldn't be if i hadn't been cultivating awareness of them and control over them for about a month.

if you can feel this, try to think of it as breath energy, this term is a little bit harder to explain. breath energy is the in and out/contracting and expanding/forward and backward feeling of movement that corresponds with breath. i don't know if there is really "energy," but thinking of it as energy is useful. basically it is the sensations that seem to correspond with the breath but are not actual air.

the proprioceptive sensations seem to correspond with the breath sensations, and thinking of all of these sensations just as "breath" or "breath energy" and then using this perception to establish control over the sensations can allow you to amplify them. when you think of them as "breath energy" you are also thinking of them as something you have direct control over, which makes it more intuitive to exert the influence you have over them. you don't have direct control, you can't turn these sensations into anything you want, or even influence them if you just think of it as influencing them. but you can alter the way you breathe and the way you conceptualize the breath which has an influence on them, thinking of those sensations as breath makes this more intuitive.

if you don't get what i'm talking about you might just have to experience it for yourself, which shouldn't be too difficult as you will stumble across this if you keep trying to make the breath more pleasant.
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland, modified 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 4:31 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 4:31 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 296 Join Date: 9/5/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for elaborating, Josh.

josh r s:
basically it is the sensations that seem to correspond with the breath but are not actual air.

I think I understand this. 'Whole body breathing' is a concept I've not really understood until now: the 'movements' (energy) of breathing ('sucking' in air and expelling it again), can be seen to reverberate/resonate/ring/vibrate throughout the whole body. This dynamic becomes the object of meditation, yes?

josh r s:
the proprioceptive sensations seem to correspond with the breath sensations, and thinking of all of these sensations just as "breath" or "breath energy" and then using this perception to establish control over the sensations can allow you to amplify them. when you think of them as "breath energy" you are also thinking of them as something you have direct control over, which makes it more intuitive to exert the influence you have over them.

This 'control', it is used to amplify the sensations/the perception of the sensations?

josh r s:
you can alter the way you breathe and the way you conceptualize the breath

And one does this to amplify the sensations/the perception of the sensations?
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josh r s, modified 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 5:29 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 5:29 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 337 Join Date: 9/16/11 Recent Posts
I think I understand this. 'Whole body breathing' is a concept I've not really understood until now: the 'movements' (energy) of breathing ('sucking' in air and expelling it again), can be seen to reverberate/resonate/ring/vibrate throughout the whole body. This dynamic becomes the object of meditation, yes?


That sounds right, it sort of starts out as waves that are unstable and changing rhythmically with in/out but the waves kind of calm down and there is just a flat distilled pleasure.

This 'control', it is used to amplify the sensations/the perception of the sensations?

yes, either amplify them or making them pleasant. i think they are already pleasant and you are somehow amplifying them. either way just move towards pleasure however it makes sense

And one does this to amplify the sensations/the perception of the sensations?

yes
End in Sight, modified 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 8:43 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 8:42 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 1251 Join Date: 7/6/11 Recent Posts
Chris G:
One thing I've been doing is just creating piti and sitting with it, stabilizing it, developing it, and enjoying it, with the thought of reinforcing the neural pathways or channels which allow me to experience happiness. (...) However, piti is kind of a rough, gross form of happiness. It's a bit edgy, even tiring at times.


Try ignoring the aspects of your experience that are edgy and tiring while cultivating piti, and see whether that leads to a "purer" form of it. (Think of the edgy quality as something that's contaminating your experience of piti.)
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Ross A K, modified 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 2:31 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/22/12 2:22 PM

RE: How to induce piti - a creative brainstorm.

Posts: 123 Join Date: 6/15/11 Recent Posts
Proprioceptive whole body breathing awareness. Piti usually manifests most strongly for me as a warm glowing feeli in the chest. I got to the point when I was living at the Bhavana society that I could at will and wordlessly direct Metta as piti toward myself and others, simply by inducing the warm glowing feeling in the chest and letting it expand. Then picturing a person or visualizing a direction for Metta to radiate!

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