Hi there DhO!

Long time no see. I have been missing you and checking up on you with some frequency

I have a question which I think is one of my better and I know that many of you will have some input to it. So thanks in advance.

I just heard Leigh Brasington's first time on Guru Viking podcast - awesome podcast btw - and of course they talked about the jhanas. Leigh sorta casually mentioned that he's noticed that, specifically, people who've been practicing mahasi style noting for a long time have a hard time attaining the jhanas. I would paraphrase and say it comes down to being too well trained in noticing everything that pops all the time, in all its dynamic moving about, rather than being with a "solid" aspect of an object.

So I'm sitting there thinking "hmm, I should probably learn to do jhanas", and then I'm hearing this and thinking "oh! So I'm too good for jhanas". Haha, not really, but what I mean is that I would think that noticing "too many" details would be better on the whole. Isn't it what we're after?! Like, why would you practice fooling yourself, untraining yourself in seeing reality as clearly just so you can sit and drool in pleasure like some blissjunkie?! I know, I know, that isn't the purpose but that's just me being frustrated with what to do here. I want to have a genuine reason for allocating time for jhanas, if necessary, so this is just me being as skeptical as I am.

So, I end up being not sure what to do. Will I harm my hard-earned skills in observing the arising/passing/dukkha/attention/intention/consciousness etc, by learning...to stop doing it? You see my struggle here?

Initially I was interested in learning to use that jhanas mostly because I'm curious. And I can't do it for shit! So that also intrigues me a little bit. Like wtf? Why can't I do it?

I do indeed notice that when I try, I (think I) can always get access concentration right away and almost immediately I start feeling pleasant feelings in the body. Perhaps some emotional joy also shows up. But it doesn't grow. I can't stay with it. Instead I see the shift in my attention, the anticipation of whats to come, the craving aspect, the discomfort in that as well as the discomfort in trying to grasp. I also see feeling/seeing/hearing and all the shit that always go on there too. And I think this very much is in alignment with what I heard Leigh talk about, about why us noters may have a hard time.

To summarize: Why would it be a good idea to learn the jhanas anyway?

Edit: So, on further thought I think it would be beneficial to learn the jhanas because they are said to support insight practices by deepening the concentration.
I guess what I am looking for in your input, would be ways of ridding myself of this skeptical, limiting approach to it. Obviously I should not be resistant to learning jhanas. But I have this limiting idea that I would somehow be un-learning important skills in order to just satisfy my craving for excitement and pleasure. If only I understood how it would actually help with insight in the bigger picture

/Emil  

Jhana using metta is a very powerful technique. Give it a go.  Jhana doesn't stop insight. In many ways, Jhana is the actualisation of insight.

A big part of the path is learning to develop equanimity by generating its conditions in the mind (i.e., supramundane) secluded from sensual pleasure/desire. One thing about Mahasi Noting is that we train to wait for equanimity to come after we've noticed a whole bunch. We wait for the Dark Night to be over, etc... It's all very passive and not at all liberating. The liberation comes when we actually apply the lessons about conditionality we've been observing to generate these wholesome and liberating states in our minds. And as we learn them over and over, like reps/sets in the gym, we can apply them in all our lives. Our hindrance-removing and equanimity muscles become strong, flexible, and can be reliably deployed in all life situations. 

In other words, what I'm saying is that the distinctions between "Jhana" and "Insight" or "Shamatha" and "Vipassana" are purely artificial, created by our minds looking to categorise things into seemingly neat little packages. 

Have fun

Emil, if you can soak in the joy of pleasure and seclusion (jhana) it's a good thing. It helps condition the mind, relax it and make it sensitive, so that vipassina becomes very fine tuned. Also there is a limit to which jhanas satisfy, or maybe another way to say it is that jhanas do satisfy and after that you kinda want to do vipassina because you are satisfied with jhana for the time being! So it's actually not easy becoming a jhana junky.

The progress in developing jhana mirrors the stages of insight, so there will often be a initial joy/pleasure which turns to difficulty, similar to Mind and Body and then Three characteristics. Similarily there will be intense pleasure followed by achy, awkward, wrongness, similar to A&P and then Dark Night. When Dark Night is 3rd jhana-ifed, it feels blissy and numb and then the transition to fourth can seem awkward because it's so wonderously plain. Until you really have the jhanas nailed down, jhana practice will be intimately tied to progress of insight --- which is another reason it isn't easy to become a jhana junky. Jhana supports insight.

My best advice is to treat it as sort of a hybrid approach. Intend to be relaxed and full of pleasure, but when difficult sensations/emotions happen, switch to vipassina and even use noting to go more fully >into< the difficult sensations/emotions. Note/label the mind objects to help the process. Note sensations, emotions, thoughts, feelings, urges, worries, etc. etc. etc. Notice how they actually appear within the mind. They are mind objects >within< the mind. Notice how they occur like sounds on the radio, not fully under your control, you experience them but you "are" not them. 

When there is a full experience of these difficult sensations/emotions the resistance/diffculty aspect lets go with a feeling of release... and this creates the foundation for the next phase of relaxation and pleasure. So insight supports jhana too.

I found that substituting the word "concentration" for "relaxing and centering within the richness of experience" to be helpful in generating the right attitude toward jhana. It's not a big battle, it's more like "loving the experience that is already happening". 

Hope this helps!

Can you explain how to apply the lessons towards a wholesome life? I went on a Mahasi retreat for 2 weeks a few months back and it was a good amount of suffering. Ultimately, it's just a memory now and I felt like I didn't learn much and don't want to do it again. I've done another Mahasi and reached equanimity, and it felt just a you said, like I was waiting for equanimity (although in shift to the reobservation nana to eq nana, I felt like I did learn something there, as the pain seemed to evaporate out of nowhere; I was a bit shocked and elated). What you're saying kinda reminds of me of what Dhamarato seems to teach. The recent conversation with Daniel and him also seems resonant in what you're talking about here. I guess I feel like I've been noting passively. I want to stop practicing passively and make actual changes. Can you elaborate more on how to build hindrance removing/equanimity muscles? 

To see that emotions are flexible. Emotions are not truth. They are not telling you anything about reality, except maybe something about brain chemistry. They are not logical. You don't have to believe in them. If you can produce bliss whenever you want for no cause, then it brings into question the justification for other emotions such as anger.

If you want to learn to let go of attachments and aversions, to be non-attached, that means going from dukkah to non-dukkah. If you produce sukha (tranquil happiness) it is equivalent to letting go. So if you can produce sukha and maintain it in daily life, then whenever something happens and you experience dukkha and not sukha, you will notice the change and you can ask yourself, what is the attachment that is interfering with sukha? You can try to let go either consciously, or by doing whatever technique will restore sukha, either way you are letting go. The more you practice letting go the better you get at it.

When you get expert at producing suka, letting go is often just an instantaneous decision do go with suka rather than blindly accepting whatever unpleasant emotion the unconscious processes in your brain serve up for you to experience.

Sukha is a good counterbalance to help ease the pain of consciously examining unpleasant emotions which you need to do to let go of them.


This might be helpful:

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-guide-to-producing-bliss-with.html

+100  

Triangulating between tools is the shit  

I would add one more!
In case you are too uncertain about how to continue or uncertain if this Jhana or that Jhana or that other practice or this or that teacher ... you apply the 'Look how its ...' practice as in;

​​​​​​​Look how its uncertain, look how its in doubt, look how its aversive towards Jhana, look how it thinks its all pointless, look how its thinks it's going to lose all the hard-earned skills, look how its (full of shit) , look how its laughing ... Best wishes DK boyo! (hope music is jiving still).

Yeah, it's funny, I started out doing noting, and sometime after I reached stream entry I definitely started realising that simply accepting the mind as it is, is a dead-end practice (by that stage). The reason being that pre-stream entry we do not know what the mind is like (conditional) and noting lets us see that conditionality and be okay with it, relaxing those first three pesky fetters. But after that, the next 2 fetters of desire/aversion, we want to learn how to actually disentangle the mind from those patterns rather than just watching them. And that's not to say that Mahasi noting is bad -- it's a good tool, but a very disposable one for greater developments later on. I then stumbled across the Buddha's words about creating a pristine mind, changing the mind to make it more wholesome, etc... And then I stumbled on Dhammarato by complete accident. And his teachings resonated with me. I also think the general TWIM meditation method is good (recognise, release, relax, re-smile, return) because of how simple it is. Very easy to attain Jhanas in their system, actually hilariously easy because of how delicious Metta is as an object. 

I will still give A LOT of credit to Mahasi Noting, because it teaches you to notice the mind, conditionality, impermanence, dukkha, anatta, etc... and that is invaluable. But it is very disposable once we've mastered it, and we can start using those skills to now work on building a mind free of impurities (the whole point of the Buddha's path -- ending suffering). 

Check out "Mindfulness with Breathing" by Bikkhu Buddhadasa (it's free online with a google search). Also the TWIM book "The Path to Nibbana". Also, another book I highly recommend is "This Being, That Becomes" by Dhivan Thomas-Jones to learn dependent origination thoroughly. 

Also for @stillhoff some interesting reading: "Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhanas as the Actualization of Insight" by Keren Arbel, it might change your perspective!

Stefan, it's interesting that you should mention this about the mahasi style. I noticed myself, after doing Goenka style meditation for about three years that I felt stagnated. Perhaps I'm starting to feel a bit stagnated with the approach I have now.

- Which isn't strictly speaking Mahasi style noting. I just developed my own style from that approach, which I figured was about creating clarity about the little things that arise and pass in mind/body. If I should try and explain what I've been doing it would be something like 'be really present and aware of what goes on and notice little resistances and tensions whenever they show up and just observe how they work and feel into them with relaxation.' Recently I've felt like 'something big is about to happen' and especially in my meditation I've felt this when starting to probe at how consciousness also shows up all the time and how all the rest of the stuff stumples after. I feel like I've been just inches away from letting go of even that; grasping of consciousness. And it seems that there's an emptiness/nothingness waiting right behind that. And the longing for this is deep, like there's a big ahhhhh waiting right there if I can let go of that. I think I potentially could.

I'm not sure why I'm called to jhana practice after all these years. But I think it seems like when I'm at this point in my meditation, where it seems like I wanna look hard at that most fundamental arising and passing of...consciousness/phenomena whatever.. I just can't really dial it down neatly enough. I feel like I need more stability here. Maybe that's why...Is that perhaps the sorta fine tuning you're talking about, @shargrol ?

I've been thinking, and before reading your comment, Shargrol, I actually started feeling like it's probably best to start incorporating jhana practices without abandoning my 'clear viewing and relaxing' practice (with fundamental footwork from Mahasi style). I like your suggestion of the hybrid approach.

@che, I thank you for your best wishes and the same to you. Unfortunately I will have to dissapoint you with the music vibes. I sacrificed my soul to the devil about a year ago and along with it, naturally, the driving factor of the music. Instead I might become a successful entrepreneur in the future, making lots of money with which I can just buy vibes. And enlightenment, whenever that becomes available in spray-can form. 

The music might fall into your lap again you just never know! 

A few more thoughts come to mind;
However, Jhana stuff starts with applied thought. "Breathing out, I know (noting) im breathing out, breathing in, I know im breathing in". 

Sink into the breathing sensations and keep at it. No need to focus on one spot. Whole body breathing. Do not give up applied thought too soon. Once the mind buys completely into the breathing in and out you will know as all will just sink into it. Mind gets very glad when this stuff gets unified. Then just ride the wave. 

Good luck! 

p.s. it helps to not have expectations and just vibe that breathing the way you would vibe an improvisation on your keyboard. You really buy into it, it's groove, it's pulse, it's tone. 

Best wishes E! (Now go get rich!) 

EDIT; I talk breathing here but of course one can use any object, Kasina, sensation of the ars sitting on the cushion, Nada sound, mantra , what have you. My experience is with breathing and with open eyes Kasina. 

 Thanks, PCD!

Yeah, of course I'll be back into the music stuff again. I might live to be a hundred, and I don't think I'll be running around for that entire time :p

I personally like the breath, actually. There was a time when I sorta was a bliss-junkie, actually. After my first Goenka retreat I had apparently gotten enough jhana-power to slip into a super pleasant body-gasm within a few minutes of sitting in a chair, anywhere, just staring into the air, feeling my breath.

Another thing I'm noticing now, 6 years later, is that mindfulness throughout the day really makes a difference. And it's like I can almost practice when walking/driving/taking a dump etc. This morning while driving to work I started getting smiley and pleasant sensations would flow through my body.

Hey, I'm gonna get this jhana shit haha. 


Thanks for your support  

This is the most profound thing I've read or heard in 30+ years of going on retreats in various lineages (Zen, Vajrayana, Vipassina) and buying -- and attempting to read -- literally dozens of books on Buddhism! 

Why can't teachers just say this -- and then teach it, instead of the hours, weeks, and years of endless drivel and BS? Are they all incompetent, ignorant, or are they <strong>deliberately</strong> trying to elevate priesthood and opacity over Buddha's teachings and humanity's best interest?

I just registered in order to thank you for writing this.  This is pretty nearly exactly the same conclusion I was coming to on my own: that I needed to be able to pull up happiness, or equanimity, in order to progress.   After three decades of being attracted to Buddha's original, practical teachings and then being, repeatedly, turned off; not answered; spun around; dissuaded; discouraged from asking; bored to tears; "koaned"; proselytized; etc.

I'm not kidding. I'm not exaggerating. Buddhism as taught in all the lineages has a <u>fundamental</u> problem -- it appears to be approximately the same bureaucratic and brainwashing problem our public schools and other institutions have: elevation of the priesthood and the ceremonies over practical benefits.   Teaching one to subject oneself instead of work to elevate oneself.  Satan couldn't do a better job of NOT teaching the jhanas than the Buddhist priesthood does.

The number of times I've been drawn back into Buddhism and meditation, only to be discouraged again by the utter uselessness, boredom, and often severe depression brought on by the lack of a clear and encouraging intermediate goals and clearly, concisely articulated path.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it is almost as though "all" the teachers are deliberately trying to make the benefits of Buddhism as unreachable and as unpractical as possible.  They work overtime to get you to promise to come back and suffer through innumerable lifetimes to "help" others, but they won't even teach you to help yourself FIRST?    

How else can we explain that after 2500 years Buddhism is such a minor religion (philosophy/skill) that, absent the recent good luck of the western uptake, might actually have gone extinct or been twisted beyond recognition in nearly all countries where it once thrived?


P.S. I am looking for a direct and accessible teacher who might guide my development with the jhanas.    I've been teaching myself, from desperation and common sense, because I can't find anyone else to talk to.    I can't even find decent books to say what you just said.  I don't care if you are "authorized" or not, would you be willing to mentor me a little?

Hi Steve,

I hope Jim is able to mentor you. I would also suggest that you check out Dhammarato. He is a Thai lineage teacher who teaches precisely this. This is pretty well his main thing. He doesn't have any publications that I know of, but he coaches students via Zoom, for free, and then posts the coaching sessions on Youtube. It's easy to find these on YouTube. That is to say, you don't have to talk to him directly to hear what he has to say. He can also see a number more theoretical talks from him on the Guru Viking site (which is an incredible resource, all around). 

For what it is worth, I have to agree that, learning techniques for dropping suffering and bringing about happiness is most important to me. It also seems that these techniques allow for insights that free us from suffering. The techniques and the theory seem to be compatible things, but you are not alone in your sense of exasperation: try searching this forum for "mushroom factory" which is a term referring to the established dharma teaching culture of keeping people in the dark and feeding them bullshit :-)

This happens because when you experience jhanic bliss you are trying to stay on the same experience. By trying to keep the same jhana experience you are literally trying to keep the same part of your nervous system active generating signals which create this experience.

In order to sustain jhana part of the nervous system is active need to change constantly.
Think not trying to experience 'the same' jhana but something like it, similar, elsewhere. Let experience of jhana which you currently have die down. Neurons participating in generating jhanic experience have done their job so let them sleep.


Definitely yes
Also when you learn to sustain jhanas by switching where jhana happens do the same for your noting practice. Depending how much you practiced any given meditation method your nervous system might already start doing such switching automatically (it is the very point of these practices!). Being more conscious about it does however make it easier to be able to train your nervous system to do that in everything you do so by itself learning that is one of the better practices you could do. Also jhanas by itself are absolutely fantastic. Its free pleasure

Your skills at adding and subtraction was damaged by learning to multiply? Learning to drive a car destroyed your ability to ride a bike?....Come up with an example in the real world where learning more has hindered your "skills" that you knew.
Damn fine reason! Because it is there, Climb it!
HAHAHAH. perhaps you need to actually practice to get the jhana hammer mastered to whatever level you need..

Hellz yes

Your just making up nonsense with no supporting experience.
EQ is where fruitions/cessations happen.
Perhaps using Jhana as a short cut to get to EQ and then practicing with noting from there would be faster and more efficient with your meditation time.
Fabricating space, consciousness, voidness is an important skill further up the path. The arupa/formless realms are great laboratories to work on skills. "oh look, there is no selfing sensations.....how scary! Oh look, I'm not scared anymore, I'm excited and that messed things up even more...There is so much to learn post second path that arupa/formless will help. AND just because its there! I must master it! Especially if i suck at it.

I would highly recommend learning the jhanas. They are good for you. They are a good tool. I talk a lot about them and general samatha practice on my logs - that might be informative. 

Thank you, Martin.    I just finished watching, fascinated, https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep20-dhammarato, which was an interview with him about his experiences and teachings.   Now I am on to https://dhammaratoblog.wordpress.com/.

Yes, what he is saying -- in all regards I can think of -- is in line with what I was trying to express.  I'm a little weak on letting go of material possessions, I confess; so I will probably need to work on that, so I guess that is still a hindrance!  (The wackiness of this 4th turning, though, probably makes this the right time for me to start practicing that with more equanimity!)

What he doesn't really talk about in this interview are the jhanas.  I am thinking, though, that this great forum is probably the right forum for those questions, whether Jim, specifically is available.

My focus is pretty narrow right now:  I want to get to the 1st jhana and begin building myself up so I can back to there when I need energy/happiness/calm to keep going.  I don't know if I am "grasping" or not, but I am pretty exhausted and yet quite determined. 

I have decades of concentration-related experience, most of it is from self-hypnosis work I've done with myself for decades.  Because of that, perhaps, it is almost always pretty easy for me to get to access concentration.  Sometimes I can get there in 1-2 minutes; in a worst case I can pretty much always get there within 25-35 minutes (even under extreme stress/fear).    I even think I may have spent a fair amount of time in the 3rd or 4th jhanas, sometimes sitting for several hours with ease and considerable quiet, and being able to bring that calm back to the real world for a time.  Most of those experiences, though, were without any mentorship...nobody I could talk to about my experiences, even what they were, much less how to develop better facility with them.

But 1st jhana?  I am not so sure.   However, based upon information I've have gotten in the last few days, partially from this site, I am thinking the "vibration" aspect of it comes pretty close to a state I USED to be able to access pretty regularly during a particularly fearful time almost 30 years ago (before any Buddhism).  Tell me if this sounds possible:  During that period of time, I read a brief description of a "candle flame" meditation.   To just stop the anxiety for a while, I started watching a candle in front of me.   I soon progressed to closing my eyes and visualizing the candle.  And then I sort of naturally proceeded to visualizing myself floating around and above the candle flame.   I would sit like that for maybe 40 minutes (although I didn't time myself...so until I felt I'd had enough). When I came back I remember I always felt like my arms were vibrating...although I don't think I was specifically looking for that...and I usually had several hours, at least, before I would start getting anxious again.

More recently, once I got the hint (I think from Leigh Brasington's book), that the "proper" way to get to the first jhana, I began finding an "itch", typically somewhere on my face, and just using that to focus on.  Sometimes that would spread until my entire face, and sometimes, most of my body, was encased in a multitude of little "itches".    Once, but only once, I actually fell IN to an itch and felt like I was encased in it, instead of it encasing me.   In the last week, based upon something Brasington said in a written article, I began going from a mere itch experience to whole body shivers and spontaneous spasms, which felt good and relieving..but not necessarily ecstatic.

Does any of that sound hopeful / workable as a basis of going deeper?  I think what bothers me (makes me feel most doubtful) is that there isn't really that much joy/bliss.  There is some relief, but not the bliss/energy I've read about and which I feel I need.  I do not think I am really "grasping" for joy, because I got that message from Brasington's book, at least, that grasping is more likely to chase the deepening away.  But I really could use a lot more joy and energy.  I could use it just to get my day-to-day life working better, but also to make myself a better human being and better able to support others.    The last few years of "Covid" insanity has been especially hard to deal with without any way to find happiness reliably.

I hope it is okay, I wrote all that down for you (and others) to read.   I "know", through all my trance work, it should be possible to have a state of joy which can be called up pretty reliably via concentration.  I also think it would help make me a better person, all around.  On some level I feel I "deserve" it (I quote that because I don't know how else to express myself, although it is not so much an ego thing as it is a sense of 'rightness' and maybe even mission/path/destiny) and that makes this even more important to me to pursue to its logical conclusion.

P.S.  I am new to this forum. If there is a most appropriate way to ask for guidance or to journal this, please give me some more guidance.  I get the feeling it is okay for me to be writing about this here?


This is the first place

Some relief is not bad. Most people don't have some relief. If you ask most people to sit still for even ten minutes, they feel almost as if they are being tortured. Maybe focus on that relief. Get to know it. Get to appreciate it. Appreciation is a powerful antidote to grasping which, as you say, really gets in the way of jhana. You mention shivers, vibrations, and spasms. That sounds like energy. Relief and energy: pretty good.

Do you smile when you do your concentration sits? Brasington talks about this. It has been massively helpful to me. Some people use an imaginary smile, but I find a small physical smile works best. A large physical smile can be great too. It doesn't matter if it's insincere. It's a physiological thing. Just as sitting up straight physiologically improves attention, smiling physiologically improves gladness.

When first jhana was still unstable for me, I found that multiple sits helped. If I couldn't get it the first sit, it was often easier in the second sit. You mentioned that you used to do a practice with a candle (which sounds like you discovered fire kasina, and you might be interested in this site: https://firekasina.org/) and that you felt the benefit for several hours afterward. I think there is a similar thing with getting into jhana on the second sit. The mind is more relaxed and unified going in.




You are doing it exactly right: describing what is going on in detail and with precision and asking specific questions. Could not be better executed.

I have a question back for you. Which books/teaching have you read about the jhanas? There are multiple styles and definitions. I think they are all "made of the same stuff" but it definitely seems that some styles seem to suit some people better than others. If you tell us what you've tried, people might be able to suggest things you have not tried or more resources that build on what you have.



It's rare to come across who could not benefit from more joy, so your quest sounds healthy to me. And I do think it is possible to cultivate joy and to recognize and abandon the causes of suffering. Those two things (the cultivation and the abandoning) are linked. If you get more of one, it is easier to get more of the other. It's like climbing a ladder: hands, feet, hands, feet. Jhana is an aid to cultivation. Insight is an aid to abandoning. So I would suggest poking around on the insight side, at the same time as working on the jhanas.

I don't know if this helps anyone else, but when I'm "distracted" from a visual object I want to solidify, by noticing the more 'individual' or 'deconstructed' visual sensations, I find treating them like clouds drifting across what I'm trying to focus on helps some. Maybe that sort of an attitude would help with some of these other sensations. *shrug*

Hi Martin!  I meant to get back to you before now, but took some time to adequately explore what you had already asked or advised.  Although I have purchased a number of books which mention the Jhanas, the only one I recall as being useful was Leigh Brasington's book _Right Concentration_.  I also bought and read the book by the Snyder _Practicing the Jhanas_ and a number of others but can't recall anything specific enough to help me figure out if I was even on the right path.  And, I as mentioned, the teachers I asked probably set me back more than they helped.

The material and encouragement I've gotten here, has been invaluable!  As I mentioned in another post, I wasn't sure, half a month ago, if I was even on the right path -- or wandering down another rat hole in "delusion".

NOW, with what you've written, my recent experiences (and I just responded to above, about the frissons) I feel confident  and sure! I also am okay with still needing a lot of patient "right effort" to deepen my experience and explore further.  Almost every day I am instigated to sit and concentrate once or twice, for a few minutes to half an hour, because cascades of spontaneous tickles (I am starting to call them tickles instead of "itches") start marching across the crown of my head, or across my face!  I don't have to sit before they show up; they just show up -- and encourage me to sit and appreciate them!   It seems like a part of me is being playful and expressing...compassion?... towards me?  And I am so grateful for that...I am grateful to me!   That sounds weird to say, and self-indulgent, but I really, really need the positive energy and encouragement at this point in my life. I am alone.  I have a lot of compassion for others, and try hard to help people and animals, but I am hard on myself and there often isn't anyone else to give me even a touch.  So I take a break and imagine it is my long-dead mom, or perhaps a lover, come back to gently massage my head, tickle my face, or otherwise pay me some attention.  I'm hoping it continues to grow -- but I am getting enough, already, that I am encouraged, and grateful, and patient.

I have a hard time doing metta.  Any advice with that?

And I don't know to do insight (vipassina)?  That has never made much sense to me. I do shamatha.  And once I get quiet, there usually isn't much to "notice"?  None of my teachers, nor hundred books, specifically taught me. vipassina, I don't think...or I somehow didn't connect with the instruction?   I don't know how that is possible, but it doesn't make much sense to me.

What I sometimes do, instead, is “parts work” where I invite an aspect of my personality or a behavior to show up and dialog.  I may journal.  But typically I go into a light trance.  Then I encourage any part of me which has a behavior or concern to show up and communicate via ideomotor (yes/no) responses (if it is pre-verbal or otherwise can't speak) or arm catalepsy. Or I may do a parts party where many aspects show up to negotiate a behavior change or collaboration.    I know that isn't part of Buddhism, but I learned non-directive Ericksonian hypnotherapy long before I learned anything about Buddhism, and, for me, it fits together well with meditation.  That said, if you can give me some specific instruction or direct me to a good book, I am open to trying "noting" or something.   But if everything is quiet after the first couple minutes of random thoughts, what is there to note?  Am I "noting" (doing vipassina??) when I notice the "tickles"?  I have quite a rich ecology of self, and I have been working with unconscious processes for most of my life using these techniques.  I've even cured certain illnesses by negotiating with parts.  I want to repeat:  I am open to trying something different; but I currently don't know how to do "vipassina".

I am thinking I need to bring more joy into my Jhana work.  My current plan is to attempt to develop "metta" and then try to intermix it and absorb into the "tickling" (if that makes any sense).

Oh, one more question:  is it common, or even possible, to experience Jhanas 3 & 4, or even those beyond, BEFORE 1st Jhana?  I'm thinking that I have.  For much of my life I was pretty detached from my body, due to illness and upbringing.  Staying in my body is something I've worked on in more recent decades, and I've made considerable progress, but I probably still have a way to go.

I find chasing after Jhana to be a rather grim battle Instead, if its not happening go for 'Look how its ...' practice and look at all the urge and striving, expose it to the light. "Look how it wants to achieve Jhana, look how it feels sef-pity as it can't get Jhana, Look how it thinks its a bad meditator, look how its self-absorbed, look how its fucking pathetic, look how its sitting, look how its sensing an itch, look how its hearing a bird chirping, Look how it wants to achieve Jhana, look how its looking at itself looking how its ... ..." 

Just an idea for those who are sick and tired of trying stuff that just doesn't work May it be of benefit if some need it! 

Best wishes! 

Mind is full of secrets and wonders which you won't be able to read about from anywhere else than your mind itself.
Despite thousand and one dharma books exist no one seems to knows single thing about dharma

This is exactly because in order to gain one needs to be ready to loose. People want to gain things, they even very often want to loose something specific but they do not want to loose what they do not want to loose... thus they do not gain insight.


Actually I have not analyzed this phenomena all that much. When it happened I just assumed that as activity shifts it hits some part of brain which freaks out and sends signals with indicate danger and which signal propagates to rest of nervous system and is amplified through positive feedback loops in to mini epileptic seizure.

As distracting and irritating this might be when it happens all you need to do is practice assuming it will all smooth out. While at it you can practice not loosing concentration and not going out of your concentration induced mind states when this happens, lucky you

BTW. At advanced level jhana can be had in seconds. This is because consciousnesses do not need to be as coupled to consciousness of main awareness and they can then concentrate on jhanas separately. It is not strong activity but concentration of these parts of brain is strong. All that is necessary to have strong jhana is make this parts of nervous system which already have jhana become dominant consciousness and this will fill force most consciousnesses arise with this jhana. This does not make existing experience of mind have jhana but new mind to arise with jhana. Even consciousnesses with jhanic factors are actually changing constantly so moment to moment they change in background and when brought to foreground. It is the specific jhanic change which is brought to be dominant consciousnesses... and yeah, change can also be thought of as its own consciousness.

Also moving body or using mind doesn't cause jhana to break. Jhana breaks when non-jhanic mind is used which causes jhanas to collapse. For someone who only practices jhana during formal meditation it will be harder to maintain jhana in their waking life but it is certainly possible to have samadhi for months or even years at a time. This is possible because through specific practices nervous system configuration changes in ways that make sustaining samadhi more stable state. When your mind is more stable and naturally tends toward jhana then you would need to put effort to break your samadhi. Still non-jhanic mind can easily break samadhi near instantly. Even when mind is perfect for samadhi it takes some effort to bring it back to samadhi. Just then it locks at it and doesn't go out of it.

Nervous system configuration is something that can be controlled. Through specific jhanic factors related to formless jhanas. In order to use it you already know how jhanas work so it is not very useful for novices. Then again not all that hard to figure that certain factor in sea or factor does something and use it even when having no idea which factor it is and how to do anything. There are ways to teach computers think and the same methods can be used for inferior biological minds

I should point out that I am not even close to being a teacher. I may have my facts wrong, I may misinterpret the facts that I do have right, and, most importantly, the things that I say might not be useful in this circumstance. I'm not trying to be modest, just realistic. All I can offer is a friendly chat, and so I would treat what I say as you would something that you heard a guy on the next barstool.



Sounds good! For what it is worth, I find it helpful to still the mind by concentrating on a neutral (not pleasurable or unpleasant) object such as the breath for quite a long time (usually at least 15 minutes, but sometimes up to an hour) before moving the attention to what is pleasable. This is getting to access concentration and the stronger access concentration is, the stronger the jhanas will be. Brassington describes this. That is where I learned it and, for me, what he describes is exactly how it works. It's a top-notch book.



I could not get metta at all, and then I tried the T.W.I.M. method, and became a metta boss. But that was after learning the jhanas from Brasington, so I don't know if it would have worked so well if I had tried the method earlier. You can find the method described here: https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the_path_to_nibbana__d_johnson_f18.pdf The description of the actual technique starts on page 74. This is also a jhana practice (jhana through metta) so it might be good for that too. (I mostly just use the technique for metta and use the breath for jhana.)



I love jhana. It's better than sex, better than winning, better than most things in the world, but if I could only have jhana or insight, I'd take insight. That said, lots of people don't bother with insight until they are at a kick-ass level of concentration. Ajahn Brahm is a big proponent of shamatha. Have you watched his videos? Good stuff!


Sounds like T.W.I.M. could be a good fit.



It's possible, in the same that it's possible, under the right circumstances, to start a car in fourth gear.

I agree with this. In my experience if the mental bandwidth is big enough you can have a jhana on one channel basically and still be processing content and stories and have things arise in jhana and it's like therapy where you're 'softening the neurons' with the bliss signal and deconditioning the trauma. That way of using the jhanas is not gonna get you deeply absorbed into the jhanas, but you can also practice strengthening the jhanas that you're already in, and then you just sit there blissing out, strenghtheng the jhana, coming out and eliciting a sankhara. It's what my teacher did a lot of. You have the jhana and you just alternate between jhana being the main theme and then letting a sankhara arise to inspect it basically. 

When you have the basic rewiring done I think is around i.e anagami is when all the rewiring is basically complete (I think this is the same idea as Ni Nurta ref. 'nervous system configuration' being controllable for samadhi - seems to me like that makes sense) and you have equivalent to stage 10 TMI (see me logs oi) then you can sustain samadhi pretty well at a low level in the background, and you basically have the hindrances 95% subdued already so jhana consciousness is easily transitioned into in waking life. 

Thanks again, Martin!  The Johnson book seems like it will be very helpful at this stage.

My plan is to take your advice and begin all my sittings with the discipline of 15-25 min of access concentration, on a timer, simply following the breath.  I've allowed myself to get sloppy and began skipping that formal step, as tickles are much more entertaining!

After the formal access period, I will begin working on the metta; at least 5-10 minutes using the book as a guide.  Metta isn't likely to be easy, but I have no doubt it is where I most need to develop now.

I will keep the "tickles" for dessert...or an afternoon snack! ;-/

I can't really adequately thank you for the time, and mentorship, you (and others), have given me.  You are a great teacher, no matter what you said about not being one!

I'll report back here when I think I have a significant question or experience.  At this rate, maybe a week or two?

Hi Martin!  Thank you, from my heart, for your guidance!   Because of you I actually read the Johnson book, which led to my attending a T.W.I.M. retreat!  I'm still woozy from the journey through the astral and trying to adjust to all the changes!

That is so awesome! 

I would really like to hear about the retreat, if and went when you feel like it. That book was pointed out to me by a fellow on this forum, so it's nice to see that it's continuing to help people here.