Nimittas for Jhanas?

aurélien berthomé, modified 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 12:11 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 12:10 PM

Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 12 Join Date: 12/15/12 Recent Posts
Hello everyone,


I would like to know if some of advanced practionners could give us a description of the nimittas there are seeing when they go into Jhanas. I don't think that it's really required to get a Jhana, but I would like to try to get totally absorbed into Jhanas as in the visuddhimagga tradition.
I've got some kind of blue/violet pulsing light dots that appear when I get concentrated enough, but I can't tell if it's related to Jhanas, because I don't really think I hit the first Jhana, it's probably only access concentration.
mind less, modified 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 12:33 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 12:19 PM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 81 Join Date: 1/6/12 Recent Posts
aurélien berthomé:
Hello everyone,


I would like to know if some of advanced practionners could give us a description of the nimittas there are seeing when they go into Jhanas. I don't think that it's really required to get a Jhana, but I would like to try to get totally absorbed into Jhanas as in the visuddhimagga tradition.
I've got some kind of blue/violet pulsing light dots that appear when I get concentrated enough, but I can't tell if it's related to Jhanas, because I don't really think I hit the first Jhana, it's probably only access concentration.

Definitely sounds like a nimitta. Yes, probably access. The nimitta is not a "requirement" for jhana, but merely a sign of strong concentration. Sometimes you don't see the nimitta before you enter 1st jhana. Meditate in a well lit room, and when you see the nimitta clearly, shift your attention from whatever object you are using to the nimitta and try to expand it, and at the same time focus on sensations throughout the body.
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Bagpuss The Gnome, modified 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 1:20 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 1:20 PM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 704 Join Date: 11/2/11 Recent Posts
I can't recall seeing a nimitta before jhana. But on the rare occasion I do see one, mine are always bright shining white orbs set on a backdrop of deep, vivid blue. Quite beautiful, but utterly useless emoticon
mind less, modified 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 3:28 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/20/12 3:28 PM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 81 Join Date: 1/6/12 Recent Posts
Bagpuss The Gnome:
I can't recall seeing a nimitta before jhana. But on the rare occasion I do see one, mine are always bright shining white orbs set on a backdrop of deep, vivid blue. Quite beautiful, but utterly useless emoticon

That is probably the Counterpart Sign you are seeing. You will have a nimitta long before access even, but it takes some practice to spot it. The Counterpart Sign takes you to the next rupa jhana if expanded, so it's actually very useful if that is what you want.
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Pål S, modified 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 3:34 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 3:34 AM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 8/16/10 Recent Posts
How big is the nimitta for you, approximately?
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 3:47 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 3:47 AM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Mine have varied in size, depending on the jhana and what object I was using.

They have tended to arise when I was actually using a Kasina object, though have seen plenty of brief bright white lights and jewel-tone sparkles and other similar things as well, usually lasting no more than seconds.

However, when kasina objects (candle flames, dots on computer screens, pentagrams, plates, the moon, etc.) have been used and the kasina afterimage is then the object, and then the nimitta emerges out of that, it has tended to be rather small (say the size of a pencil eraser if held at arm's length) such as when the candle flame afterimage turns into the burning red clean, pure circle, and then tends to be about 2-3 times as wide (say a nickel held at arm's length) when it becomes the spinning yellow star in the red circle with the green and purple rings around it, then becomes significantly larger when it becomes the black spot (say the size of tennis ball held at arm's length or maybe even as big as a softball held at arm's length), then it becomes much larger when the lines around that black spot start forming and swirling slowly around it, like pale golden-white tangents to it, say the size of a pizza-baking pan held at arm's length as it expands to be the many-radially-symmetrical aztec-patterned rainbow flux lines, then fills the whole field as it becomes things like a black hole drawn Cosmos-style in those same rainbow flux lines, or whatever, filling everything.

Helpful?

D
mind less, modified 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 8:14 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 8:14 AM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 81 Join Date: 1/6/12 Recent Posts
Pål S.:
How big is the nimitta for you, approximately?

That depends on how you define the edges of the nimitta, since it is often very spread out and shifting, but for me the core is about 3-4 cm in diameter at a distance of 20 cm from the face. It is very important to keep the nimitta close to the face, since it will increase the potential rate of increase in concentration. I found this by experimentation over the years, and it was also confirmed by a teacher at Pa Auk, but is as far as I know strangely enough not mentioned in e.g. "Knowing and Seeing".
mind less, modified 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 9:02 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/21/12 9:02 AM

RE: Nimittas for Jhanas?

Posts: 81 Join Date: 1/6/12 Recent Posts
Daniel M. Ingram:
Mine have varied in size, depending on the jhana and what object I was using.

They have tended to arise when I was actually using a Kasina object, though have seen plenty of brief bright white lights and jewel-tone sparkles and other similar things as well, usually lasting no more than seconds.

However, when kasina objects (candle flames, dots on computer screens, pentagrams, plates, the moon, etc.) have been used and the kasina afterimage is then the object, and then the nimitta emerges out of that, it has tended to be rather small (say the size of a pencil eraser if held at arm's length) such as when the candle flame afterimage turns into the burning red clean, pure circle, and then tends to be about 2-3 times as wide (say a nickel held at arm's length) when it becomes the spinning yellow star in the red circle with the green and purple rings around it, then becomes significantly larger when it becomes the black spot (say the size of tennis ball held at arm's length or maybe even as big as a softball held at arm's length), then it becomes much larger when the lines around that black spot start forming and swirling slowly around it, like pale golden-white tangents to it, say the size of a pizza-baking pan held at arm's length as it expands to be the many-radially-symmetrical aztec-patterned rainbow flux lines, then fills the whole field as it becomes things like a black hole drawn Cosmos-style in those same rainbow flux lines, or whatever, filling everything.

Helpful?

D

A "kasina nimitta" is very different from the regular nimitta, since the former will be there from the start, while the latter arises as a sign of concentration. The drawbacks with kasinas are that you need a physical object (not a big deal), it takes time to "charge" before the session and, most important, that it might fade before you get to the jhana or before you get a concentration nimitta to use in its place. That said, I'm not so much into kasina meditation, and don't have the complete picture.

A regular nimitta lasts as long as you keep up the concentration, and from access or earlier and onwards it will potentially be there all the time, looking at you face-to-face, like a little companion. The risk with extravagant and detailed descriptions of nimittas is that the beginner will decrease the chances of spotting it. I made use of nimittas a couple of years before I read a description about it, but still it took a while before I realized what the author was talking about. The regular nimitta is not very exciting. Visudhimagga (I think it was) describes the counterpart sign (patibhaga-nimitta) as "cotton white", but I would say it is more like white cotton dipped in dark blue paint with a hint of grey... but if you look for something resembling that description you might not realize that you are already staring at it. It's subtle to the untrained eye.

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