Hello,
We will continue this month with our samatha jhana practice. Katy set up both the initial September and the October discussion threads. Since she is away for the weekend, she has asked that one of us do the set-up for November.
So be it! Thank you Katy for providing such a unique way of allowing geography to not be a factor when we wish to sit in meditation. Thanks to Daniel Ingram, who has made available to us a Google Hangout “virtual meditation” space. And a special thank you to Bruno Loff who has made the meditation room available throughout the day by providing a calendar so anyone can check if there is a “curator”, i.e. a person who has confirmed his or her availability for at least 30 minutes for a given block of time.
What this means is that anyone can be a curator and block a given period of time from any time zone – nice ☺. Bruno’s thread is called “Online Meditation Room (looking for curators)" and can be found at this link
Online Meditation Room (looking for curators).
For those of us who have been sitting regularly in our Eastern Time Zone, we continue as usual by clicking the following link
Rupa Jhana Meditation Room to enter the virtual meditation room at the times indicated below:
At our regular Rupa Jhana thread we will continue to host two daily sits in the Eastern Time Zone:
Morning sit: 05:30 - 07:00 (In the UTC time zone that is 10:00 - noon) – Vijay will be curator
Evening sit: 20:00 - 21:30 (In the UTC time zone that's crazy-early) – Georges will be curator
There are curators for each sit as indicated above. But there are no teachers in the group; this is basically a 90 minute personal "lab period" with peers. Sometimes there's sharing after some sits depending on what people want to do. At other times not.
The purpose of the jhana practice is to train the mind in temporarily abating mental difficulties in order to develop an ability to know arising and passing phenomena with more understanding and with a relaxed, stable concentration as a result of gently tempering five identified mental movements that can hinder relaxed, stable concentration of the mind.
These five hindering movements of mind are said to be: sensory desire, ill-will, sloth-turpor, restlessness-worry, and doubt.
November’s meditation theme is called “a pleasant abiding”.The Buddha frequently made reference to this wording
a pleasant abiding in his discourses when speaking of the four developments of concentration – the four jhanas. He speaks thus:
“"And what is the development of concentration that, when developed & pursued, leads to a pleasant abiding in the here & now? There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. With the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters & remains in the second jhana: rapture & pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation — internal assurance. With the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, 'Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.' With the abandoning of pleasure & pain — as with the earlier disappearance of elation & distress — he enters & remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity & mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain. This is the development of concentration that, when developed & pursued, leads to a pleasant abiding in the here & now.”
AN 4.41, Samadhi Sutta: Concentration: translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
