how do you cultivate the mind through jhanas?

vic, modified 9 Years ago at 1/21/15 12:35 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 1/21/15 12:24 PM

how do you cultivate the mind through jhanas?

Posts: 27 Join Date: 1/15/15 Recent Posts
I do not know to much about this but i did read up and hear that you can cultivate the mind towards certain desires once in jhana. I do not know all to much about this but i am wondering if anyone knows much about this? an example would be if someone wanted to change their whole personality and be a better person, or perhaps even change a certain habit that they could enter jhana and begin to cultivate their mind through jhana in order for their intention to manifest.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 9 Years ago at 1/21/15 8:14 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 1/21/15 8:11 PM

RE: how do you cultivate the mind through jhanas?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
vic:
I do not know to much about this but i did read up and hear that you can cultivate the mind towards certain desires once in jhana. I do not know all to much about this but i am wondering if anyone knows much about this? an example would be if someone wanted to change their whole personality and be a better person, or perhaps even change a certain habit that they could enter jhana and begin to cultivate their mind through jhana in order for their intention to manifest.


Hi vic,

Jhana training is a positive and graduated training system to train minds into calm, steady attention and focus. 

At first, I think a lot of us would agree with your example: that we wanted to change something about ourselves when we started the meditative practice or some other training we did rigorously. That desire for change can be very pragmatic and beneficial, as with the changes that occur.

But what happens along the way is similar to when a person goes to sell their car or their apartment/bike/home/etc: you get that thing all cleaned up for sale, and then suddenly you don't want to get rid of it once it's kinda tidy and useful again. You realize your stuff just needed to be cleaned up again and some junk needed to be removed. 

So jhana training helps us stay with something (the mind) that we may not want or like, but to start being able to watch it non-judgementally and then, just by watching the mind from a calmer attentive state, we can actually see thoughts coming up, if those thoughts are hunting for a physical gratification ("chocolate, chocolate, chocolate") or if just thoughts/emotions are coming up seemingly for no affective reason like air bubbles.

Because it is very normal to start off from a mind that is averse to even itself (one's personality) or to the conditions of life itself (birth, surviving, death), the ānāpāsati training first trains the brain in happy, focused means: the jhanas 1 - 3. I don't know you and we're all unique, but I feel in general that basic skill in jhana training takes about one year and there are shifts in first three months, second three months, third three months and fourth three months. 

And it's very normal to struggle in jhana training like any other endeavor, like a 10k run or something like this.

Yes, it changes the personality (which itself is always changing), but in a way like washing a muddy car that has some dents but still has life in it.


What got you interested in jhana (mental stabilization) training?

And do you think you will use ānāpānasati or another object?

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edit x1: "basic skill in" [purple]

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