Today I hit an unmistakable (haha) 4th jhana at the tail end of the A&P. I distinctly and clearly went through the DN in 4th jhana --then realised I'd lost it due to the heavy crap going on in the DN during Reobservation.

In theory this is not right is it? But this is not the first time I have experienced jhanas that do not match up with the Nanas. What's going on here?

I know my assessment of at least the nanas is correct as I've been a DN yogi for some time now and the "mini DN" in EQ came much later in the sit. I suppose I could be mistaking 4th jhana but then I rarely get it so clear and so deep! Often I wonder if that was really it, but today was one of the rarer occasions where there is little room for doubt.

Can anyone else relate to this or explain what is going on?

A phenomenological description of what you mean by '4th jhana' as well as as 'DN' might shed some light on the situation.

Nick

Hi Bagpuss,

Would you use descriptive language versus labels to describe this?

(Hey, I check the date on this thread, btw : )

4th = pleasure in the body drops, a rapid sinking down feeling levelling out to a feeling of immense stillness and "spaciousness", slightly "detached" in flavour but in a very comfortable sense. Bit like being at the bottom of a very deep, very still lake.

DN = after a lot of "free falling" (feeling of falling coupled with very fast vibrations in the body, air pockets etc) the build up of head tension, itchy-crawly sensations around the nose/mouth, wandering mind (it doesn't want to face the ugly stuff i reckon).



hah!

So you experienced the following



with



at the same time until what are are terming 're-observation'?

Nick

Hi Nick. Yep, that is about right.

May not be RO. But certainly near the end of how I currently experience the DN. though the jhana dropped, I went into low EQ shortly after (same sensations, not bothered by them. Less "pain" in them. The. After a long fairly dull stretch a similar ser of sensations I've described here as DN. after that its pretty new territory for me. Mostly little bursts forward into higher speeds of vibrations and (sometimes) clarity though confusion is a frequent player as well.

I'm still figuring out what's going on in the last bit. It may not be as accurate a description as I'd like.

Thanks

Okay, for me, this is more like third: sukkha, concentration that is deeply calmed but still has gradient/me in it.


For me this...
...would be the mind attempting to force the purely equanimous concentration (4th jhana) and then, naturally, mind becoming frustrated. Equanimity is really that: equanimity. And that, for me, is naturally still not a natural place for my mind: the brain has been determining distinctions since birth, so the equanimous mental state -- absolutely without gradient, but which has such affinity for its object(s) that it is like impersonal metta -- can be like a bit of a hole-in-one putted blindfolded and facing backwards. My two cents.

So I think that enjoying and resting in sukkha - the deep, "dropped" comfort area of mind is excellent and required exposure right now. It will open into what I would consider to come next (fourth, and we've talked about that already, many months ago).

At this point I think an external object can help: like light on water, watching your dharma teacher lecture, asking Mrs. Bagpuss to speak about her day (entering sukkha - comfort - concentration is a great way to listen) for twenty minutes after the kids go to bed... something like this. This external object focus (versus mind on mind) can stop the mind from turning on itself in frustration. To keep listening and watching a friend talk about his/her day, for example -- well, the vision or hearing is likely to perceive differently and space will be perceived somewhat differently. [removed: my experiences would just color another person's mind uselessly, thus contribute to expectation and forehead pressure]

So the deeply sunk and sukkha mind has access eventually to its own pure equanimity.

Suffusive sukkha first is key. This will settle the body as you've described. Then as the body becomes deeply sound, vibrant, content, it calms further and at some point after this immersion, the mind's awareness of its own comfortable sensations just trips into a ubiquitous, affinitive indistinct-sponge-bridge for the other details in the fields of perception (and even one's own body sensation takes up a seemingly impersonal magnetized quality with everything in the scope of equanimous mind). One can get a taste of this in the listening/watching exercise with deep sukkha and sliding into equanimity. Then the mind has an idea of what it does not need to do (it does not need to do anything but sit in sukkha and not expect more, just let sukkha happen and help the rising mind of thoughts, expectations, wants settle back into sukkha).


What do you think?

[oof: edits for typos]

Regardless of what it is or isn't, you recognise equanimity in your experience. Probably an ideal way to surf the dukkha nanas, no? Was there a tangible difference in how you experienced the dukkha nanas as opposed to how you usuallly do? Was it easier? Is it something worth repeating and cultivating?

There is the slow, deep variant of the A&P, and there are all sorts of subjhanic things that can come up, which is why I like my subjhanic terminology, not that anyone in the world other than me seems to use or appreciate it, but I digress...

So, anything alternating slow to rapid could just be the A&P, which can be edgy for some at times and is not always pleasant.

Further, the A&P can have heavy jhanic overtones for some and at various levels, and can certainly occur out of a jhanic context, and it is common for people to think that 3C is Dark Night and the A&P is Equanimity or the 4th jhana: happens all the time.

Katy as usual you've packed a lot into yoru preppy, thanks! Let me just pick up on this bit thought: "So the deeply sunk and sukkha mind has access eventually to its own pure equanimity."

I'd be interested to hear your description of sukkha, or more, the range of experience that could be considered sukkha? What I experienced i would not call sukkha. The pleasure had left the body, there was just deep calm and stillness --which is not to say that that is not a satisfying experience, quite the opposite of course...

Also, interesting what you say about inducing sukkha in every day experiences. I have had times where a "delicious" feeling has pervaded the body almost constantly through the day and I recently listened to a dharma talk by Rob Burbea that talked of learning to move/walk/eat in jhana, albeit a weaker feeling than that experienced in formal sitting practice. I can imagine being able to do this to an extant.




Yes on all counts. My "territory" has changed over this year. I no longer experience the DN as I once did, but even how I experience it now can change from day to day. Remember I talked about awful head tension recently? Turned out to be DN stuff. I was just entering every sit in the DN, it seemd as if everything was head tension until it wasn't (heh!) now I am back to very mild tension apart from the sticky end of the DN.

The whole quote from Tarin is marvellous. Thanks! This bit:

Is particularly pertinent. I seem to spend a good deal of energy in a sit evaluating. I seem to have more productive sits when the focus is "what can I do to get the mind even calmer", regardless of where I may be on a map.


Yep, I am always confusing 3C's/DN A&P/EQ --during the course of the day (i sit 2-3x) I figure it out, but in the sit it can be near impossible to tell sometimes. Again I guess it may be easier to focus on calming the mind further rather than figuring out what fits where

My jhanic experiences seem to be progressing but pre-SE i still have little real control bar getting into 1st/2nd and experience the whole thing as a continuum of experience more often than distinct states.

Thanks everyone, and apologies for the delay in replying. Half term here, the kittens are home and causing havoc! hhh!

Hey there,

Okay, so I mean: just sitting. Eventually, sukkha-mind cedes to single-pointed, just equanimity in which even "sukkha" and "dukkha" are not in the suffusively equanimous perception.

This is why, I think, zen schools have these "just sitting" retreats, shikantaza; some people are dealing with very stable, very settled mind and body, but they feel there has not been a break-through, insight. And to me insight in the equanimous mind (4th jhana) is not verbal, it's sort of experiential and later when considering the experience afterwards the person can try to take practical action on the insight, practical incorporation of that insight.

To me the jhanas are a training system just like any other (musical scales, golf putting, knitting): first one just learns to hold a thought. Ideally, one just uses the word "joy" itself or something that triggers the feeling, since that feeling is the 2nd jhana (and may as well pick something that kind of gets the mind ready for what's coming in jhana two). Soon, the mind can just be with "joy" (piti) and it can develop the piti sensation, then the mind spends x-amount of time retaining piti sensation suffusively. At some point that suffusive piti sensation just seems too intense energetically to be comfortable and the body naturally starts showing a relaxing reduction in piti sensation and now the body is settling into sukkha, comfort.

Sukkha I think takes the longest to stabilize ('cause that's my experience, that's all). It is such a low steady place for the mind that I think drowsiness is a very real problem (and excess caffeine would make a very real other problem for many people). So an early morning practice is ideal here, and with some light nearby. And to be well-rested and.....to have laid great foundations in one's daily life for several days in advance so that literally all around you is a pleasantness and alertness, kinda of like when you first were dating Mrs. B, probably, or when you were first a dad and it was easy to wake up alert just to see the new baby.

So sukkha jhana benefits from naturally alert and undisturbed surrounding conditions: sitting during a time of day when there is natural wakefullness and when one has deliberately cultivated pleasant environmental conditions: there is no fight or guilt or desire being played out in the mind for example.

Once sukkha is stabilized-- meaning there is very, very low energy, the body is still, the mind is no longer amped up on the brightness that comes with piti, the mind is settling very, very much into just the bottom of the pond, there... there is for me the point at which equanimity will occur. And that is a different animal, so to speak. I almost feel like 4th jhana and the arupa jhanas should be framed as a group of five. But that's silly.

So practices that bring one into joy, comfort and equanimity in daily life are likely to help this form in the sitting practice and vice versa (not that I've been practicing since November... but I'm settling in again =) This is where an actualist practice can be very helpful. Maybe talk to Claudiu about that.

So I just need to be able to say that in a tweet...

And... here's post #2:

I kind of feel like you're honing in on the "sole proprietorship" phase of all this, meaning this is your business and you know which questions/feedback you need to ask.

To me, when a person starts sincerely localizing like this into themselves, their workings, more and more, just training in themselves, sensing that self-study is going to be more productive now than a big suite of another's advice/teaching ---- well, for me, I think that's a key phase. Because like anything, one ultimately has to do something with one's own reserves and effort and impetus. But it also takes a lot of support and teaching from others to get to that point of natural, sincere, close self-study (and then I think, at least for me, those periods come and go: times when I need help learning from/with others, times when I naturally just stay with myself and work on something alone).

So I often hesitate to mention anything to you these days, because your practice seems to have gotten beneficially localized in your self, self-study. But here you raised a query and got some feedback to take back to your business.

Thanks for all of this Katy. Im with you on it. Though i experience it a little differently to you, your experiences make sense when compared with my own. For me this is very much a continuum of experience. There are often no crystal clear boundaries where one state ends and another begins, though I do often have a kind of warty/floaty feeling as I transition from A&P to Dissolution (and other nana shifts) which correspond with a jhanic shift at the same time. I have not really had the experience of perfect conditions helping to cultivate sukkha, but i will soon get to test this on retreat. For me I just need plenty of good sleep and a bit of a run up (ie the 2nd or 3rd sit of the day will often find my near the peak of practice, the first sit often ends in the dukkha nanas after about 40mins).

I certainly experience the sleepiness thing. I never had this much till a few times recently. I have found that refreshing the full body awareness/suffusion of each jhana (like in the kayagatasati sutra) is really good for this. It gives you something productive to do when in that very low energy state (or any other) and does not seem to detract from the concentration, though it can do if you do it too much. You have to balance it.

I often find myself wondering if Im going anywhere, or if im wasting my time on a dead end in that state though. If those thoughts settle in, that's it for that sit!

Yeh, im pretty much figuring this out but the input is greatly appreciated. Im hoping my upcoming retreat prooves good as the teacher talks about jhana in the same way i've described my experiences here in the past. He talks about "tuning in to piti/sukkha", the fact that those phenomena are already present, you just have to be able to sense them then work with them, and other stuff that makes me think he's on my channel. We shall see!

Thanks again Katy,

Hey, thank you!

I have no idea how, but our way-back short exchange on yoga has been key to my yoga, and that practice is really useful in my daily life. I think it was the book you recommended to me: that really got me started on lengthening the breath.

I also read your practice notes and other threads a lot and take your points into consider. To me they seem soundly based in sincere efforts, so I find really beneficial information in them.