relation between jhanas and nanas

super fox, modified 11 Years ago at 12/11/12 8:18 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/11/12 8:16 PM

relation between jhanas and nanas

Posts: 36 Join Date: 2/9/11 Recent Posts
Hi All,

I am working on the assumption that I got SE a month ago. I've started up practicing pretty solidly again (2-3 hrs per day) over the last week once it seemed that the review phase had ended. Now I'm assuming that I've begun second path - whereas review phase of first path seemed like a rocket-fueled pass through the path again and again (with a fairly powerful baseline shift in daily perception that has held up so far against a good bit of real world testing), about a week and a half ago things suddenly calmed down, my experience of what I am aware of dramatically opened up and I seem to now have access to the samatha jhanas and have been able to get the first three to consistently arise in textbook fashion (i.e. all of factors are clearly recognizable, inspection of the 3C's of the dropping factor of a jhana allows for the progression into the next jhana, etc).

Question 1: I'm trying to understand how the jhana's and nanas work together. I'm aware of the map Ingram lays out in MCTB where the first three nanas correspond to the first samatha jhana, A&P to the second samatha jhana, dark night to the third and EQ to the fourth. However, it seems from my experience that the center of gravity insight-wise is currently in the 3C's. Yet I think I'm able to work into the 2nd and 3rd samatha jhana? I think I'm not clearly understanding how the nanas and jhana's fit together...

I have a hypothesis that I've been playing around with, which is that I've noticed that the samatha and vipassana characteristics seem to be somewhat orthogonal, so it seems possible that within jhana, the samatha level determines how pleasant, concentrated and effortless one's experience is while the vipassana level determines what parts/aspects of awareness one's investigation naturally focuses upon. Thoughts?

Question 2: I've been curious about this interesting dropping experience I've been able to reproduce on many occasions after SE. Basically I go into a very tranquil and alert state, with a very clear awareness of what feels like the whole of the mind and body (i.e. I feel like i'm able to expand awareness to choicelessly watch all mental/physical sensations). Sometimes it almost seems like the mind and body both disappear and yet I'm still aware. This isn't a fruition (those (at least what I think are fruitions) always feel like slightly stupefying transitions into 4th vipassana jhana (like a sudden movie scene change)) as there is still some kind of very subtle awareness. I've also found that when this experience is particularly intense, the dropping experience is somewhat jarring and I'm launched out of meditation (like the mind and body seem to disappear into the void and then they reappear with the mind and body then automatically exiting meditation and trying to stand up / sit up). I mentioned this in a previous post when Shashank suggested I might be falling asleep - this prompted me to try and replicate this experience and it's happened enough times in a clear and alert enough setting that I honestly don't think I'm taking a micro-nap.

Is this an experience that can be further cultivated? I'm not really sure how to go about cultivating it as it generally appears when I'm able to get into choice-less awareness (I see through the effort exerted in trying to direct the faculty of attention and let phenomenon present themselves rather than try and turn a spotlight upon them), so I'm not sure how one goes about... doing things at this level of meditation. Also, even if this state can be cultivated, is it productive to do so while working towards 2nd path? (I found 1st path was primarily oriented around body and lightly on the mind whereas 2nd path so far seems to be like the mind opening up into high-definition while the body often seems to fade)

~Super Fox