I do concentration  meditation  about one hour a day . I went by braisington  book. Things went well for a while . Very relaxing and the mind is quiet.   Since then I have read Tina Rasusmans / Snyder  book PRACTICING  The JHANAS.     I have also read Shaila  Catherine's  book FOCUS AND FEARLESS.   Both of these derive from PA Auk Sayadow  method.  Also Ajahn   Brahms book.  These 3 authors describe  jhana almost identically. It is a much more focused absorbtion  than Braisington  states.  I believe this is the real jhana and what I want to shoot for. But is it possible.  They all speak of a namitta appearing while in access concentration  prior to first jhana. Ots the sign your on your way. They also say duality is (temporarily) transcended  even in first jhana . It should feel profound.   How can I get this .  I simply  concentrate on breath above my lip. And do a little noting if mind wanders.    Would fasting  or maybe more hours a day help.   I don't think without  first jhana . Any headway could be made on insight.   

I found as very useful in this area of meditation (samatha) the guidance of Beth Upton. She was a nun in Pa-Auk monastery for 10 years. She gives advices in very straight and simple way on her YT channel... She also explaines working with nimitta nicely here - https://youtu.be/YVK9IegZcD8  

In the suttas "nimitta" just meant one of the four foundations of mindfulness, see MN 20 for example. I've also linked to a couple of skeptical videos.

Sources

https://suttacentral.net/mn20
https://youtu.be/AcV_t5eOY7A
https://youtu.be/BqqI9XSuQ1E 

In the Gavi Sutta (AN 9.35) nimitta is used to mean the "foundation" or "sign" of jhana.

Thanks for that great link

Yes beth also thinks the namitta is visual. She is hard to get a hold of. I wonder how many hours a day they did with Sayadow

You may wish to search on the Dho for discussion about nimitta

google this-

site:www.dharmaoverground.org nimitta

good luck,
~D

Ian --


Ian, what is your personal experience of nimitta? In my experience, nimitta is a visual phenomenon that arises prior to jhana. Mine is almost always a red dot in the center of my field of vision (eyes closed), followed by some blue-tinged cloud shapes as my wide concentration deepens.

Yes that sound right. Dis this nimitta appear after months of practice? Do you need several hours a day?

I had an opportunity to join a zoom retreat with Beth. And her instruction was something in sense "don´t care about any lights, just follow the breath without any intention to attain something... you should feel that this (actual) state of mind is just good enough - no need to get anywhere else". And this with gradual reduction of effort (as the mind felt to be more and more comfortable with the breath and without need to get distracted) after some time of practising lead to jhana. So I don´t think that nimitta is necessary thing you need to create to get into jhana. All you need is to follow the breath/other object and remove the hindrances (easy, right?).

​​​​​​​Matt, I've been practicing jhana for many years. The red dot nimitta I see appears very quickly when I sit still and drop all but my immediate experience of the breath and the visuals behind my eyelids.


 
David, it's true that you can't "create" a nimitta or jhana. If your mind is busy creating then it's not in the jhana zone.

That video and her video on the Light Kasina are fantastic. There were two key points in my understanding. Kasina's are constructed or imagined and need practice so that  they can be maintained without effort in meditation and that when working with the breath you need a visual representation. That way when the sensate world recedes you still have an object of concentration. That gives me some confidence in what I'm doing and makes some sense of my existing practice

Thank you!

It took 2 residental retreats with Shaila Catherine for me to enter the Jhanas. I finally got a nimitta half way through the second retreat and it was comical to me when I looked at the tile floor going into the meditation hall one day and saw that the black and white tiles were layed out into the pattern that was my nimitta! This showed me that while switching my focus from the breath (which was all but gone) to the nimitta led my mind into the Jhanas, that nimitta was completely constructed by my mind with me being conscious of it. Ha!

I found that while I was doing 3-4 hours of concentration practice a day for 2 years, it took me going on retreats to finally get the Jhanas that Shaila Catherine and Beth Upton refer to. 

Thank-you.  Yes I love shailas book.   So it basically takes alot of hours a day?