●Why dont people suggest using ñana-11 as a springboard to experience jhana? Or in other words why don't they suggest skipping to J4?

-I'll explain why I'm asking this.

I've always been so mystified by jhana. I never thought I could access them or would before stream entry.

All these years I had realized I experienced a lot of jhana in my 2nd year of regularly meditating on retreat. I basically sat in jhana-4 all retreat.

when I rebooted meditation I could occasionally get back. Maybe like 70% the strength of on retreat, max

Why do I think this? It hit me after daniel said "equanimity (ñ11) is basically jhana-4".

And it made sense at that moment. I've never experienved another ñana that strong and obvious. Still, to this day. And I've damn sure never experienced J1/J2. I've experienced a lot of weird body rapture but IDK if it's jhana. But j4 is obvious. Or maybe more accurately Vipassana-jhana-4.

But I have no clue really.

I mean I don't see why this isn't suggested as a path more. At the very least to teach a dry-insight hard-head what it is like. I considered me like that until I rebooted my practice. And like I said, it's weird looking back to think I've experimenced some form of jhana for most of my path! O.o

Phenomenolgy:

So when I get there it's usually either from the dark night unpleasant sensations and/or the pain if sitting. 

I use them to keep generating lots real time equanimity. 

During the sit you can map anxiety on a chart that looks like a triangle shrinking, left to right. (>) And then it mostly turns off.

There is a mixture of feeling ok, and feeling those unpleasant sensations.

Eventually it gets ok. Then I get to this weird mystical place. All of the sensory qualia in the body feel smooth.  I shit you not it feels similar to low dose 5meo-DMT. I strictly mean the smoothness. A&P feels like a bunch of rapid pins or dots, tingling really fast, like n,n-DMT, low dose. Back to equanimity...

My thoughts become melted into the field. They are more like little clouds. Like I mentioned in another thread. They come and go obviously, and with ease. No problem. The whole field fuses together.

It's hard to remeber back to 2014, and 15 on my two retreats. I think it felt similar but more intense. Like my consciousness was some kind it bubble, or fish bowl. It's hard to describe.

There is also the fear of madness phase. Except I don't get fear of "madness", it's just fear of something I dont know. Probably fear of having my identity-view blown up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please feel free to ask whatever may be needed. Maybe people are skeptical this is jhana-4. I'm aware of the light versus hard debates. If I had to guess it's vipassana jhana 4.

I couldn't tell you the difference between Vipassana jhana 4 and shamatha-jhana 4 (light), from memory. Only from description.

As far as I'm concerned a vipassana jhana just shares quality it's shamatha part, but it dances. Meaning has the 3s more prominent.

But from my perspective I went down this path that no one told me to expect. If this happened to me, is this ever done intentionally?

Like, it would make sense to just get really good at dry insight if you're like me. Because outside of the equanimity ñana I had too much anxiety to enter Jhana-1. It may have been only possible to do what I did. Climb to EQ and steep in it, and let the jhanic qualities appear. Then my anxiety went away automatically. All the phsycial unpelsant sensations eventually melted away. So I was in turn able to relax more. It made me concentration jump.

I've been meaning to post this for months but afraid to ask. It's just a lot more technical and phenomenolgical that what I normally ask about. Really I'm only posting out of a big curiosity I think.

Because we all are sort of biased towards our own experiences and what worked for us.

I'm just kind of thinking, like, why isnt this recommend or suggested more? Or is it? 

I'm completely out of my depth talking about something this technical but I need to get this off my chest lol 

Thanks

So I've always had strong jhanas (on retreat) and one of the things I've noticed as I've progressed is that as I've drives more into equanimity I've found jhanas to be harder to work well like since a lot of the texture of things is energetic and smooth and flowy I notice piti a lot less, sukkah, etc. Whereas before jhanas were like being hit by a frieght train and really noticeable, they've shifted to just another thing.  

It is difficult to recall to what extent jhanas even existed for me pre-stream or if I even had the capacity to concentrate in that sort of way. 

Then after stream entry they were just there and after a little exploration basically immediately available. 

It kind of just sounds like you got to equanimity in retreat no? So aspects of the 4th jhana were bio available and likely arose easily in experience. 

The jhanas and Nana's aren't separate. This is important yet I'm not sure I know how to say any more about it. They are made of each other. 

To answer your question. Jumping to things isn't always possible and when it is it can lead to neurotic attachments. I assure you in the wide world of meditative practices there are many who are jumping to and stabilizing within j4. It's actually very common but I guess that sort of approach to me really seems to be missing the point. 

​​​​​​​Usually one does a jump to j4 type practice because they have fetishized an experience they are attached to "freedom" "space" "emptiness" "consciousness" so on...

​​​​​​​Sometimes too it is appropriate to deeply explore certain jhanas in practice. That's where good pointing out instruction is useful. 

And you see, eventually, one runs out of jhanas to jump to.

​​​​​​​Also, the best jhanas jump you. 

Also again, a lot of the post stream entry stuff is just jumping into ever more refined and rarefied jhanas until thag process starts to wear itself out. 

​​​​​​​

Perhaps this might help clarify things.

https://www.integrateddaniel.info/mind-maps

If you look at older posts, there is information out there.
​​​​​​​~D

Thank you guys. So far Bahiya Baby got closest to what I'm asking about.

"To answer your question. Jumping to things isn't always possible and when it is it can lead to neurotic attachments. I assure you in the wide world of meditative practices there are many who are jumping to and stabilizing within j4. It's actually very common but I guess that sort of approach to me really seems to be missing the point. "

This kind of answers my question.

Maybe there was a better path for me. But I just happened to go down this path. I guess this expresses the importance and usefulness of a teacher. Back then someone could have told me that.

When I "see" stuff, I feel like I also skip to vipassana-jhana3, and vipassana-jhana4.

Like I almost always see the merk when I'm lying in bed. I only don't see it if I'm not paying attention.

Additionally I have occasionally seen full 3d objects in the center of my field.

Honestly I could benefit from more concentration-centering practiced. I'm strangely more curious about the first two jhanas.

I already know most of the basic theory you guys are telling me. I'm not saying this to be disagreeable or make it seem like I'm smart. But I feel I should point it out.

@sha-man!

Yeah that's neat. It's amazing how personal the path is. It's actually crazy 

Bahiya Baby: "Usually one does a jump to j4 type practice because they have fetishized an experience they are attached to "freedom" "space" "emptiness" "consciousness" so on..."

that's really interesting. The way I would say it is I do indeed have a natural inclination to space, and openess. As opposed to tight focus. I know you aren't saying me necessarily but I'm open to me having done something similar to that. I doubt fetishiszing it but maybe another neurotic tendency 

I guess someone who has the reverse inclination might pop into jhana 1 naturally. I guess I'm sort of answering my question 

It's just the fact that we're all uniquely wired and have different things that we are naturally inclined to. I don't know.

Resolving this question really doesn't matter. But getting good insight from it is always good. The third training type insight. I need to try to improve my lower jhanic/ñana, attentional modes. I.e. learn j1 style concentration. Maybe

Thanks DW, Im familiar with the mind maps, and ñanas chart and all that shit. I love it.

The jhanas are great. The fourth and it's modifications in particular are very interesting and a detailed exploration of them can lead to very profound insights. Sometimes an exploration of them may even be necessary to practice but we also have to be careful of our attachments for example thinking "ahh everything is so spacious, this is good practice" these sorts of thoughts are tricksy and often reveal attachments when investigated. 

Interesting. I don't think thats a problem for me yet. Because sort of what happens is I just randomly HAPPEN to pop into their. Like I'm not aiming for it ever. I mean I used to call it equanimity. Before I realized it's sort of jhanic. To me it just seems like EQ with higher concentration I supposed.

I think part of the reason I didn't land SE dwelling in it for 10 days, 2 different years, was because something like what you said happened. Not enough investigation. However since then I've developed a much more nuanced understanding of my path. Like Ithe idea of tipping into stream entry versus learning some long hard lessons.

I really actually don't give a shit about accessing the jhanas. Like it would be a cool extra thing. But Im aiming for SE.

I'm still using language live I haven't been in VJ-4. Because it's super ingrained in me.

Anyway I'm just sort ot riffing. Back on track. 

Last night I applied the principles in this thread. I sort of said "fuck it" im just going to do jhana-1 ñana1-3 attentional type practice.

Mediation:

What I did was go direct. No specific technique. Just point my attention there. I placed my hands on a pillow lying down. Felt the tingling. And made a ball of light in my vision as best I can. Either faintly in the minds eye, or visually with actual inner light... and I made my physical eye balls concentrate. It was effective.

My goal was just to do that style Mediation, and call the mind before I fell asleep.

This is an aside, and I'll make another post, but I parboil psychoactive amanita muscaria mushrooms to sleep. The mario mushroom. It relexes me. The most I've drank is 3 grams. I only meditate on it incidentally. Larger doses are apparently psychedelic.

I'll make a separate post about it. Its interesting how it pairs with Meditation.

I'm really happy with how this post turned out. It seemed to clear up a question I didn't know how to word. And I get better technique out of it. And maybe some meta-analysis of my life and practice.

Yeah, this is why I've found equanimity to be super confusing. You definitely hit different states that feel super eq, some have jhanic energy, some change the textures of things to cotton balls or just less awful or somehow there but see through, etc. Then you have all the practitioners talking about low eq vs high eq (but high eq really doesn't seem like a well formed thing. It's also unclear to me that the DN is its own distinct thing and not like a cluster of properties where some can be there). And then you have periods of longer and longer no-self, or mostly no-self but with bits where the "selfness" is a tricky question to answer. Personally, I think the maps are shit at this stage, and you just need to keep practicing. Best of luck! You can do it! And I will say its been very nice to be in a roughly similar spot to someone on here to sync on logs and experiences and the unfolding of things.

Imho EQ nana has 4th jhana - just in what can be called different strata of mind.
I would even say that while this is true I usually experienced EQ at my mind experiencing 1st jhana in formations which then would progressively move through all the jhanas during the course of days.
Then there are strata of mind which take longer than POI and are themselves kind of POI.
This whole thing is a giant POI/jhana fractal !!!

So can you jump to EQ by using 4th jhana?

The only case I myself investigated was finishing DN quickly and making it not suck.
What I notices there is at end of re-observation this jhanic sensation that fills mind to the brim and after that it shifts to EQ. If you manage to do that quicker you can skip to EQ. That itself is easier when you make DN not suck as much by changing certain stratas of mind to 2nd or 3rd jhana - which where you'll have to tinker with to get best result - from experience it relates to parts of mind which experience this sorta noise on sides of your perception. The kind of jhanic experience I mentioned is jhana but not really the kind that I would identify as any jhana in particular.

So yeah, there is some tricks which can be used and they even have some sense in terms of brain activity. There are other ways to play with DN states and maybe even better ways. I don't really engage with POI cycles all that much to test these things further as its just easier to keep mind not experience any bipolar effects ;)

One thing to note though is that at times just observing sensations and letting things take their course is the solution. Not always though and I for one see great value insight and skill-wise to play with ways to "fix" dukkha by more pro-active interaction as that by itself can give you insight and skills to deal with things which normally can happen even after "awakening" (in quotes because I don't like this term) because in mind you cannot expect 100% of it being already pre-trained just because enough of it was to get you path. There can still be situations you find yourself cycling in some strata of mind. Of course by this point its not an issue and either way you do it you should know how to deal with this stuff and relatively quickly.

ps. Just take note that I said it fills all the mind - if you do it incorrectly it will only kinda work or even mostly work but not quite and it will sit there 'unfilled', kinda like part of the mind was still in DN while part of it moved to EQ. Thankfully its possible to fix it. Just make sure to not rush it and it'll be fine.

I've actually had a similar thought to this, as I also seem to often find myself in EQ territory without progressing through the typical J1-3 arc. 

I've never heard any teaching specifically as to why it's still advisable to progress through J1-3 rather than straight to J4, but here's what I would guess:

-There are benefits to mastering lower Jhanas, specifically J2 (A&P) and J3 (DN).  For example, one might be in perfect EQ 99% of the time, but then when they fall out of it for whatever reason, they don't know what to do and get thrown off because they are not experienced in the lower jhanas.

-When we talk about 'Jhana 1-4' we're talking about the jhanic arc as taught in Theravada Buddhism.  This progression is how it's described in the sutras, and it's taught to master all the jhanas, not just one of them. 
I'm sure there are different teachings out there, and different arcs than the one taught in the Theravada.  But you would be getting away from 'progress of insight' models at that point.