This thread is a personal account of what I did and are doing in order to attain and sustain the jhanas. This thread is a work in progress. I will start it by copy/pasting my personal notes and edit these notes later on. I will try to include my previous related threads on the DhO somehow, add some of my other related writing and also add some relevant background information later on. Here we go!



Personal notes:

15. august, 2011
jhana!

(listened to http://damith.org/dhamma/downloads/santi/santi_talks/Bu._Sujato_2011-02-17_Santi_DT_HowToGetJhana-ed.mp3)

breath smells good

(breath) turns into a shape of softness (like very, very soft skin)

feels very soft when breathed, both in and out breath (softness is experienced as the breath moves)



strange feeling (in body), like very, very hard softness

body feeling directly related to feeling (and, importantly, seeing) the softness (in the breath) on in and out breaths




----
droopy eyes afterwards
certain pressure in the head (might not be related to jhana as I had it before I started the meditation)
NOTE: the pleasantness is INSIDE THE BREATH. not in the body.
could have eyes opened while focusing on the softness of the breath and not loose the state (it was lessened though)
did NOT have a meditation session for increasing concentration right before, but spent a good deal meditating the whole day (and the one before it).

I speculate that this wasn't complete jhana, as the good feeling in the body was really weird, and could definitely be much more pleasant/raptours/blissful.

NOTE: I have had this exact feeling in the body before. This EXACT feeling (the very hard softness). I think it must have been while falling asleep several times.

the very hard but very soft feeling in the body is like a metal skeleton with lots of super soft pillows. like every bone in my body turns super hard, but the rest of it like the flesh and skin, turns incredibly soft.
the soft breath is like holding between the thumb and the index finger some very, very soft sand form a beach. minuscule and ultrasoft and "spongy" are the best words

it took 10 minutes (almost exactly)

the body feeling was not piti as I experience it otherwise. not at all. gross piti, is what it's called, I guess.
------

its about disguising the breath as a pleasant object (pleasant in many ways, feeling, seeing etc.)

never, ever, ever let the breath get away. at a certain point after establishing some concentration it is tempting to stop paying attention to the breath itself and start to focus on the "disguising" of the breath. this is hard to put in words, but just never stop paying attention to the actual breath.

my problem is to find the breath beautiful. I don't know how to do this yet. The one thing that eluded me when I managed to get jhana was the shift from just paying attention to the breath to suddenly paying attention to something really soft. now that I think about it, I was "unconscious" of this when it happened, and maybe exactly that is the trick. to let go at a certain moment when the mind wants to disguise the breath as something pleasant.

that is really strange. I remember when listening to the podcast that I was really irritated at the guy having the talk for some of the things that he said, and also I was irritated that I couldn't turn it off without probably loosing my concentration. this lead to some quick bursts of "well, now it's probably not gonna work", but they faded quickly (I handled the hindrance of skeptical doubt). so it is strange that what followed this doubt was actually something right, the process seems more forgiving than I expected. maybe jhana is just about that one moment where everything is suddenly right, and after that, everything goes "out of control" (as you will of course pay attention to something pleasurable)

the moment before I realized that the breath had turned into something soft… I really have no clue or memory of what happened there. maybe what happened in that moment wasn't necessarily only that the breath turned soft, but that everything (the jhana factors) suddenly fell into place, and this set off a chain reaction leading to jhana.

So, I either don't know specifically how to find the beautiful breath, or, there are other jhana factors which I'm not good at inducing, but it just so happened this time to work out.



------


Hence the five jhanic factors are:

1. Initial application (vitakka)
2. Sustained application (vicara)
3. Joy (píti)
4. Happiness (sukha)
5. One-pointedness (ekaggata)

In practice, these factors can be defined as follows:

1. Bringing the mind to the object (arousing, applying)
2. Keeping the mind with the object (sustaining, stretching)
3. Finding, having interest in the object (joy)
4. Being happy and content with the object (happiness)
5. Unifying the mind with the object (fixing).

http://www.buddhanet.net/mettab3.htm


"All you can do is set up the conditions for the jhana to arise, by cultivating a calm and quiet mind focused on pleasantness. And then just let go—be that calm quiet mind focused on pleasantness—and the jhana will appear. Any attempt to do anything more does not work"

-----------


Tom Moylan:


an hour trudged by
made food
i listened to a dharma talk by Ayya Khema on the Jhanas
jhanas have the eluded me for the past five years

so i sat on the cusion for the last sit of my "prep" day. within 10 minutes i was in 1st jhana! like a foolish cow, i blazed into secon and then third and then fourth NO PROBLEM! I thought, "well, i would already put this retreat in the plus column if the house fell down now. Bed time.

the next day the jhanas were there but i was steadfast not to play around in them until after the retreat as i needed the big MO for stream entry..ok well i tested them out on a few sits. i had the key now..no problem.


------------


It is important to let go, to be in a mood of non-striving, to be open and accepting. You might notice sometimes that you suddenly feel more carefree or lighter, in a very, very subtle way (maybe so subtle that you'll only notice it while already in meditation and highly concentrated). This is a sign of the mind, for some reason, opening up, and a sign that maybe you should try to do the jhanas.

Do no try to do the jhanas. Only focus gently and intently on the meditation object (like the breath). After a while, you might notice tingling in the body. Do not try to notice the tingling, do not look for it. It must come to you, show itself to you. When this happens, you can try to bring in, create or find some form of pleasure or pleasantness to the breath, or in the breath; like a nice smell, or a nice shape, or a nice image, or all of this and more.

Then, only focus gently and intently on this pleasure of or in the breath, or pleasantness of or in the breath.

Never try to do anything except to focus gently and intently on the object of meditation, when trying to access the jhanas. Your whole mind must be totally free to do whatever it wants, except for keeping it still on the object of meditation. The mind is what knows how to get the jhanas, not you. The only thing you can do is to focus gently and intently on the meditation object. And you should do this when you notice that your mind, for some reason, is open, accepting, non-striving. And how do you get into this mood? It either happens by itself, or you can practice letting go. What is the practice of letting go? … I dunno.

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(try to edit the below to use "delight" instead of fine)
The breath stills, and becomes fine.
The mind stills, and can now be aware of the fineness of the breath.
This fineness of the breath, is it spontaneously imagined? Or is it meticulously perceived? Does furthering concentration, and only that, lead to suddenly perceiving the breath as fine? Or does is the mind given enough space to spontaneously "disguise" the breath as fine?


---


the mind set of "purification of mind" is a very valuable one.


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make resolutions
pay attention like you are smelling something. attention rests where it would rest if you were trying to smell something. A place in the nose (for me its right at the start of the nostrils and feels a bit downwards, outside of the nose) where the air has a shape and is clearly felt. Really, it's where you would pay attention if you were trying to smell something.
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vitakka | 1. jhana
vicara |
piti | | 2. jhana
sukkha | | | 3. jhana
(ekaggata | | | |)
upekkha | 4. jhana

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NEW SIT 25. aug 2011

Direct Mode to calm down
Start focussing on the anapana spot, quite closely, while tending to any feelings with the Direct Mode technique.
After a while, you can lax up on the anapana spot (the sensations themselves at the anapana spot will be somehow switched to a certain "idea" or "image" of the breath. At first, disregard this "image", and really keep at the anapana spot. Then let it go). It will go from being that spot, to a more general, wispy image/feeling/sensation. For me it, this time, it went from being the anapana spot to being kind of like a wind. This wind eventually started softly oscillating (whaow-whaow-whaow), especially on the out breath, and it felt soft. This I thought was penetrating the breath into it's components (like I experienced the pressure at the back of my head, pulsing), and was immediately intrigued - even though I was supposed to be doing samatha, not vipassana. Five seconds afterwards and jhana presented (and so I was apparently doing samatha!)

I had a hard time keeping the jhana up, since I hadn't built a very appealing feeling (the oscillation softness). I kept at it though and eventually ended up in what I'm sure is second jhana. The main difference for me is in the focus-quality. It feels like every molecule of space in front of me slowly stretches, so that space itself stretches. It feels really spaced out, and the focus is a tiny bit wider that the first jhana. There is a clear shift between this, as the characteristics of (what I call) first jhana subsides when (what I call) second jhana comes up, and vice versa.

Both of these states and their qualities I have experiences many times in the past. The second jhana I have experienced many times open-eyed, and it is what I referred to in my post at the DhO ("Face/head kasina"). Knowing this somehow feels helpful - I now know exactly how the (first two) jhanas manifest for me and can easily remember it because of this previous experience with them. I'm really excited if I will recognize third jhana form the past!


This entry into jhana was preceded by approx. (a guess - I didn't record) 1h 30min of meditating. But 1h 10min was spent in an open mediation (practicing equanimious attitude). Just sitting, being content, some direct mode grounding, concentrating for a slight period on the witness (this was good), focusing on Nowness and so on. A very free-style, fidgety, non-focused and not very productive (in terms of goal reaching) meditation. Then I locked down on the breath, and within 7-8min I had the jhana, then sat in it for about 12-13 minutes.

I could not feel any intention at all to attaining jhana. Really, this can not be stressed more. If there is even a lingering sensation of wanting jhana (for me in the stomach or chest - deal with it Direct Mode-style) when focussing on the anapana spot, nothing will happen. This time, I even thought I was doing vipassana! And that clearly helped me stay of the wanting for jhana. When I come to think of it, maybe the fact that I was convinced it was vipassana is what did it for me this time.

It seems training for jhana is about learning how to release/not have expectation for jhana, even when clear signs of progress presents. That would be my nr. 1 tip at the moment. Equanimity, kind of.

The oscillation presented itself squarely on its own. How? I've no idea, it really just happened after softly, gently, loosely tending to the anapana spot (which had by them turned into the wispy wind/"idea"/"image").

So:
Direct Mode grounding technique
Anapana spot (sensations at nostril, kind of) with grounding technique (to deal with initial wanting for jhana)
Anapana spot
Anapana nimitta (wispy wind/feeling/"idea"/"image")
"Good feeling" - the oscillation and the softness of that oscillation. I do not remember so much how I focused on this (i.e. closely or loosely )
Jhana


This was not hard jhana. It was barely soft. Because of not building the nimitta strongly enough, it was hard to focus on when in the jhana, and this made it hard to sustain the jhana. Because of this, lots of energy went into trying to stabilize and maintain the jhana - effort that could have been used (or not used) so as to get much more absorbed in the jhana. The lack of this "bathing" or "steeping" in the jhana led to there not being any "droopy eyes" as in the previous access.

———


29/30. august 2011


Today I have had a great deal of aversion to meditating. I’m probably somewhere in the dukkha nanas (not bad at all) following entering dissolution after what happened yesterday (focus out of phase) which explains that aversion.

So I procrastinate to no end, and just as I start sitting I come up with something important to do and do that instead. I practice sitting positions, read about kasinas and blah, blah, blah.

At some point I decide that I would like to see if google has any “electronic kasinas” for me. Eventually I come across this:

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/11032195/homepage/name/homepage.jpg?type=sn

I look at it for a while, noticing that my right eye really hates me for the moment (kept drying out, very annoying). I keep at it, and it is kind of interesting.

Then it happens. I recognize that “very hard, ultrasoft”-ness somewhere (as a feeling) that is characteristic for how I experience first jhana. I wouldn’t have known it to be important unless I had already identified it as some jhanic thing in the (very recent) past. So I latch on to this feeling, and what do you know, first jhana!

I have to say though that this time it was really light jhana (much lighter than ever before - maybe it wouldn’t even classify as jhana, but it was entertaining and felt good and it had that exact same quality that the previous entries to jhana have had). I didn’t exactly know what was causing it (the feeling itself, the kasina, the mental image of the feeling [yes, the feeling has an image connected to it, kinda]), so I didn’t know how to stabilize it further or deepen it. But for some reason it stayed with me for quite a while. Enough for me to have many stabs at adverting to it. And while I can’t at the moment pop into it, I am sure that a little more staring at that kasina will do it for me (edit: I was wrong).

I had very little expectations when I started staring at the kasina. I was also feeling very comfy in this stable position (the lotus position, which I have never meditated in before, only sitting on a chair [almost every mediation I do sitting on a chair] or half-lotus) with lots of padding all around. My thinking was mostly trying to perceive the “luminosity” or average color of the kasina (kinda like if you took the picture in photoshop and blurred the image until it was one uniform color). [NOTE: all of those little shifts happen (negative image, etc), but I’m used to them now, which I think is very important].

While I can describe exactly what it feels like for me, I can’t say that I’ve read anything like it so I’m guessing it is VERY VERY subjective, but for the sake of it, I will explain my experience of it:



Also, I tried this while in full lotus, something which I don’t do normally. And as I am now writing this the pose is starting to hurt a lot. Strange, because while doing the jhana it barely crossed my mind (even though I found it cool that I was “doing it like a pro”). I’m actually sitting on a couch, lotus position, with a medium-size pillow for lumbar support. The pain is actually making me sweat now EDIT: I couldn’t focus on the kasina because of the pain, so I missed the chance to see how much the pain would diminish when getting into light jhana. Something which I will definitely test out later. But now I’m gonna try to get jhana again, by that kasina I linked to.

EDIT:

So staring at the kasina for about 20-25 min (I think) - no jhana. Or rather no “ultrasoft” feeling. I think I was expecting too much and maybe thinking a little bit too much. What did happen though was one heck of a show in my imagination. That kasina turned into one crazy ass movie - very hallucinogenic. That captured my attention for very long, and it was really fun. I thought that this was really entertaining and that from now on I never need to watch a movie again, but I was also all the time aware that the image never changed, and so it was quite funny to see what the mind came up with (mostly many kinds of alien faces - creepy but not scary). One thing to note was that I was squinting as my right eye was acting up.

A little background on todays attitude:

I decided early, maybe even the day before, that this was going to be a mediation day. But as I procrastinated my way through the day I ended up not meditating until about 22:00 (and even then procrastinated for well over an hour in-between bursts of meditating). But since I go to bed very late, that gave me plenty and plenty of time — something which always feels nice.

I had two cups of green tea within two hours of each other, and both within three hours before meditating. Nothing interesting to note about food except I had breakfast very late (about 17:15).

EDIT: I just read through my other recording of jhana and notice that I said that expecting jhana is a big hindrance. Actually, I consider it to be hindrance nr. 1. It is such a difficult thing to manage (of course it is, your supposed to “non-manage” it) — trying to get jhana without any feelings of trying. I guess the recipe for jhana is: (1) knowing how to relinquish all “trying” (or something) and (2) knowing what to look for (for me it’s that ultrasoft feeling). Number one is like finding the door, number two is like opening the door. I have nr. 2 down. Let’s learn nr. 1!

—

Sat cross-legged again, staring at the kasina for 30min. Think I went through first, second and third jhana, possibly even a little fourth. But the only thing I could tell that was changing was where my focus lie. First bang on the kasina, then the kasina but a little less zoomed in (as in thinking “that round thing” instead of “RED”), then the kasina went away while everything around it was prominent (but blurry) then a very equanimious and relaxing part where I didn’t care so much either way, but it seemed like the kasina appeared again together with the periphery but everything slightly diffuse.

Cross-legged pose posed no problem, but my right knee really hurts now. Also, this is not what I am looking for. If this was some sort of jhana, and it seems that it was (even though my descriptions could be heavily scripted), then it is not the sort that I want. No good feelings, no bliss, rapture or any of that candy-stuff. While it was really nice and calming, it was not of such a nature that I will be able to cut through procrastination with the promise of one more ride. That is what I’m looking for. Something which will stick out enough from everyday experience, so much so that I will be deeply motivated to pursue it.

I will say that the first time I willfully entered jhana with the breath, that was very nice, and given the ability to skillfully enter that state without any fumbling or wondering what to do or where to go (as I am doing now), that would be much more like what I am looking for.

So what is strange to think about now is how these two approaches to jhana seem to intercept. By using the breath I stumbled upon jhana twice, both times with some strange bliss-feeling being the most prominent feature (along with an image of softness). The first time of entering with this red kasina, that feeling arose and I latched on to it, getting into a very mild state like that of the breath. Then, this time, possibly climbing the jhana ladder up to the fourth jhana but without any bodily bliss or any other prominent feeling in the body, and the focus quality being the only prominent thing — except for the kasina itself of course.

A little note: Do not underestimate the value of feeling comfortable. Really, get super-comfy. But don’t fall asleep! Looking at an electronic kasina, as I did, with the brightness of the computer screen beaming into your eyes, you’re probably very unlikely to fall asleep. Also, drink green tea

9. september 2011

Had it again, soft this time also.

This time I kind of deviated from my planned practice because I found something interesting. Paying attention to this interesting thing took me into jhana.

To recap: DO NOT WANT JHANA! As demonstrated today, the minute I relinquished the desire or intention to get jhana, it came about.

I was doing kasina practice with a bright red circle. Eventually the circle split up when I crossed my eyes (which are now a tiny bit strained) and I payed attention to the very blurred vesica piscis. It felt very intimate, closed off and comforting because everything else was so out of focus. So it was just me and the alternating circles and the vesica piscis.

I had previously read about a brain hemisphere (Kenneths link) test and the alternation of breathing through each nostril. This kept my interest up with the continually fading circles (different dominant brain hemispheres) and the vesica piscis (synced brain hemispheres).

It wasn’t stable. The “jhana feeling” was somehow connected to both my physical eyes and the image I was looking at, but I couldn’t stabilize. I might have needed more concentration to stay with the image more instead of the flailing attention that went from the feeling, to the image, to the eyes and so on. I couldn’t stabilize by paying attention to the feeling itself and struggled to keep it up. This lead to it not deepening and only being quite shallow, but I was definitely there.

——

9./10. september 2011
Sat again. A strange thing happened:

I always start my sits with some gentle and controlled rocking to the sides and back and forth to settle into a position where I’m least probable of sitting on any nerve or vein. I do them in decreasing magnitude: (.......) (.....) (...). Then the same back and forth. By the time of the second back and forth I get a sudden urge to pay attention to somewhere in my forehead. It’s like a vacuum opens, and that vacuum feels good, so I naturally want to rest my attention there. So strong is the urge that my eyes roll back into my head and I rest my attention there. It feels good. I do another round of rocking because I thought that maybe it was causing this vacuum.

I stop rocking after a second round, then just sit there paying attention to the spot. It feels very much like falling asleep so I make sure to keep very attentive and alert, staying present as much as possible. I have a little insight then: attention doesn’t need to be projected outwards towards objects to know them, I can know them at the sense doors instead. Greeting them at the door as they enter, instead of reaching out to notice them.

Anyway, back to the nice feeling in my forehead. I stay attentive and alert because I don’t want to fall asleep. Then I suddenly notice that I have here, from this spot, a very clear view of what I’ve come to call the “story-spinning”. Each and every time I loose my concentration it is always because of getting caught in a story of what is currently happening and then that story spins “out of control”. I can be the dullest stories of why I am doing what I am doing and what I will do next (in meditation) or it can be some absurd fantasy of physically impossible figures or what not. This story spinning is my nr. 1 cause of faltering in gaining rock hard concentration. Now, from this spot in my forehead, as I said, I have a very clear vantage point to this story spinning and I simply stop the story spinning whenever it happens. Naturally this quickly leads to more concentration as I am eliminating the nr. 1 cause for losing concentration very few moments after it appears.

I recognize “THE JHANA FEELING” in my lower arms and hands, but get a bit excited about it and it quickly goes away. After that I chase my tail looking at a kasina.

Some words on “THE JHANA FEELING”. It is a very distinct feeling for me. It is also very hard to describe what it concretely feels like because it seems to be pure paradox. Today it felt like infinitesimally vastness. There’s always something about scale, being unfathomably big while simultaneously being unfathomably small. Or, in another version, it feels like pure softness while simultaneously being pure hardness. To try and explain: today it felt like my arms where very tiny compared to the rest of the body, think tyrannosaurs rex-arms, while also being as big as and also made of the same material as one of those massive cement beams or columns that hold large buildings up. My hands were like the hands of lego-persons - you know those yellow claw things. The scale and mass of my lower arms and hands were both paradoxical. And it feels really good

Recap: AGAIN I was deviating from the planned practice and really just enjoying something that came up, not at all thinking about jhana.