Forum: Jhana and Ñana

Hi,
this is my first post here and as I´m simultaneously amazed and confused about the amount of knowledge, I´m trying to figure out where I´m at right now - respectively how to proceed.
I´ve been meditating for about 7 months now with diverse intensity of practice. Just recently increased my efforts and found the precise techniques presented here really useful. As I´m still experiencing solid pain while sitting I suppose I´m at 3rd nana. I used to concentrate on the sensations of breath at my nostrils but changed this to the up & down movements of my stomach which seemed to be easier to me. Since then I felt persistent pain in my abdominal muscles... wasn´t quite sure if that resulted from a different breathing method due to the concentration on the stomach movement but this sustained even when I returned to just noticing the nostril sensations. So I assume I should continue practicing samatha. Is it helpful to really concentrate on the pain itself in order to penetrate it or stick with the breath?

Thanks in advance,

Martin

Hey Martin, welcome to the forums.

Try doing half samatha, half insight. Use samatha when you first sit and work on attaining the next samatha jhana in line to what you've attained so far. When that half is over, switch over to insight and dig around in your head with the 3 characteristics. Where you are now, focusing specifically on "impermanence" is the best bet. The samatha work will make impermanence more easily recognizable. Try your best to break things apart by looking at them. Some things may be easier, such as your hand or the breath. Try to see all the tiny little sensations that constitute "hand" or "breath," then try to break those down too.

Theoretically, you'll need to attain the 2nd samatha jhana and then thoroughly investigate its' qualities via some form of insight technique. That'll cause the 2nd vipassana jhana (knowledge of the arising and passing of sensations) to yield itself to you. Of course, this isn't the only way (far from it), but it's a relatively straight forward place to push on from until more specific questions come up.

Best,
Trent

Thx for your advice Trent,

I forgot to mention that I actually have done what you proposed for the most times of my practice, namely 1/2 hour samatha, 1/2 insight.
That´s what I thought it was at the time, though I know see that I indeed used the pure unfocused or soft part of vipassana.

I had a really great session this morning when I tried to incorporate all of this. I maintained focus on the breath during the first half hour basically persistently with only short flows of thought/distraction but without losing focus on the object entirely. This really helped in penetrating the sensations in the 2nd half. I started with my left hand for up to about 10 minutes trying to feel the sensations of it and what those themselves consisted of. I managed to get into some kind of tingling sensation but couldn´t go any further yet.
I continued this procedure with some back pain which eventually resolved after some time. The next pain I approached was in the neck area but that nasty little thing resisted all my efforts for about 20 minutes. ;)
While doing this I recognized being quite motivated and enthusiastic about the maintained focus that I achieved, so I feel like I´m on a good track on bashing impermanence permanently.
Anyway I have some other experience that I can´t quite put in place yet.
This doesn´t happen while doing sitting meditation but when lying down (which i used to do in combination with holosync and lucid dreaming practice):
After some time of relaxing the body while maintaing awareness Id get serious vibrations foremost in one or both legs.
I wonder if these correspond to the mentioned vibrations felt in A&P?
However these tend to get so intense that I just have to stop the practice and I haven´t meditated lying down since.
Is it possible that my body isn´t relaxed enough while sitting that prevents those vibrations from appearing?
Really appreciate the feedback!

Martin

Author: garyrh

Hi Martin,

I remember it took me a few weeks working with the vibratons to get familar. It is not my experience now that the body needs to be relaxed to notice them.
As for lying down, Daniel and others say it suits some.

[edit] with lying down, you are probably more incline to be too relaxed. And it is my experience holysync will compound this problem. Getting the right amount of energy in meditation is found with experimentation. You are looking for maxium "clarity" and concentration. So it is not just about holding the object, you gotta make sure you don't miss a sensation! For me it feels like I am directing energy.
Gary

Martin,

Dunno what to tell you about what happened while laying down, but I don't think it's A&P or Holosync related.

When you said "I managed to get into some kind of tingling sensation but couldn't go any further yet." That sort of sounds like what I thought of vibrations the first time I sensed them. A lot of the 2nd vipassana jhana is about learning to see the "beginning" of a sensation, so that is why it'll seem like a bit of a frustrating wild goose chase the first time we attain the A&P.

Make sure when you're doing the samatha half that you're trying to attain a specific jhanay. Concentration (the quality of mind that allows you to see more and more subtle phenomenon) increases like lifting weights. You've got to slowly work your way up, but if you just sit at the same level (same weight) of samatha jhana, you're not going to strengthen it very quickly. Gotta step it up to concentrating on the next most subtle or complex sensation to really give concentration an effective work out.

Keep up the hard work and you'll get it.

Trent

Hey garyrh, I´ve basically dismissed these sensations while lying down being the vibrations spoken of, seems to be much more like some kind of muscle tremor. Also you´re right about often times beeing to relaxed.
Trent, I find it quite hard to distinguish between the different jhanas. My concentration is pretty strong. Only once in a while there might be labeling thoughts or a few words of analysis regarding the current state which are quickly flowing by without real interruption. I couldn´t say I´m feeling happiness or rapture more calmness and equanimity. I´m experimenting with zooming in and out of body parts mostly keeping an awareness of the whole body. This is when I get to experience (1-2 times every 10 minutes) some sort of wave of vibrations flowing over large parts of my body. When I get to focus on this it might trigger a 2nd, 3rd and so on quite rapidly after another. Feels quite intense and often I recognize that I´m automatically contracting certain muscles while this happens. Also this is when I start to sweat much more than before.
Had this before but disregarded it as something that i manually induced and not being some kind of "natural" state. The pain is almost completely gone at least.

How long does it usually take to get ... say to the 5th or 6th samatha jhana? Is it possible I´ve already been there because that´s what compares best with the descriptions here
http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/page/The+Samatha+Jhanas
I might very well be deluding myselve though...
Anyway it feels much easier to keep up the practice. While I used to strongly anticipate the end of my session during the 2nd half hour, I´ve extended it now by another half which flies by pretty fast.
Also hadn´t read Daniel´s book when i startet this thread and I´m now getting into it. Think it´s gonna help me tremendously to know what´s going on.
Thank you both for the input.

Martin