13. Day 6, morning#
This morning we are going to continue to look at the bojjhangas, the enlightenment factors.
13.1. Enlightenment factors, bojjhangas#
We’ve had a look at three of the enlightenment factors already. Energy, mindfulness and investigation. Those three states spinning on each other, doing the work. Activating awareness in the present, seeing things clearly, letting them go – this is the work of the first three enlightenment factors. As we develop these enlightenment factors, the other four come to be fulfilled or get developed. We don’t become enlightened by reading or studying the scriptures or by thinking or by wishing that enlightenment just burst one’s mind. There need to be certain conditions in place for this to happen. And those conditions are the seven enlightenment factors.
These seven bojjhangas can be seen in all stages of our Vipassana practice. They don’t fully develop and become quite clear to the mind until the stage of the knowledge of the arising of passing away, until we can tune in our mind into that frequency of arising and passing, seeing things just arising and passing away, the mind not clinging or holding to anything. At the point of contact where consciousness is arising at the six bases, we are able to activate awareness so it joins with consciousness. It’s able to know that 210 present moment experience.
The development of the seven enlightenment factors can be looked upon as a president with the ministers, like a king or queen surrounded by the seven ministers. All those ministers having their functions and their role to play within the cabinet, within the structure of the organization.
Consciousness is just the knowing. That’s all it does. It knows stuff. If the mental factors that are surrounding consciousness are the hindrances, for example, that’s what we know. That’s what our experience is. If the seven enlightenment factors surround the consciousness than our experience is something quite different. So here we are developing these seven enlightenment factors. We are practicing, activating our awareness, noting what’s there, stepping back from the phenomena – mental or physical, pleasant or unpleasant – and allowing it to pass away. Of course, it’s very quickly replaced by a new object. Something new comes to the attention of consciousness. We are not going into that story. We are not sinking into it, we are not appropriating it, we are not holding it. We are letting it go. We are knowing them, knowing them clearly.
These enlightenment factors allow consciousness to know in a very particular way. In fact, they surround consciousness to elevate it onto a very particular type of knowing, a path knowing, knowing in the manner of the noble eightfold path.
We are practicing the four foundations of mindfulness. It doesn’t mean studying or thinking or listening to talks about the practice. It doesn’t mean discussing them or arguing about the final points. It means sitting down and doing the practice!
We have to directly and experientially become aware of the four bases on which mindfulness is established and we should practice with this awareness not intermittedly, not sporadically, not with gaps but continuously, persistently and unremittingly. And this is exactly what we do in our Vipassana meditation. As we are noting and knowing and letting go, the first three enlightenment factors are doing their job.
13.2. Fourth enlightenment factor piti#
211 The fourth enlightenment factor starts to come into our experience. It is known as piti. It means rapture. It’s a mental state. It’s a state of mind that arises in the meditator when the first three enlightenment factors are up and running, when they are working, when we’ve started to note and know and let go. This fourth enlightenment factor comes on the scene.
It has the characteristics of zest, or enthusiasm or intense interest. There is also some delight. Some satisfaction and some happiness that comes to the practice. Piti’s role in the practice is to make the practice interesting and exciting and it certainly does that. Some of you will have started to experience the side effects of piti. When piti is in the mind it also causes the body to react in certain ways. Physical sensations arise in the body because of the mental state of piti. It’s cause and effect there.
The function of this rapture is to fill the mind with lightness, to fill it with energy and agility, to make it sharp and functioning, to make the meditation fun and exciting. It’s bringing a deep sense of satisfaction into the practice as well. When this rapture occurs, the cause and uncomfortable sensations, that were arising in the body – the painful knee, the soar hips, the stabbing in the back – those sensations disappear and they are replaced by something that is much softer, much gentler, smooth and light.
Piti manifests in many different ways. For some people it starts to manifest as a lightness throughout the body. You will feel very light, very buoyant in the sitting meditation and also in the walking meditation it happens. The body will start to feel like it’s very light, to lift and elevate. Sometimes you might think you are floating in the air. It might feel so light, that the whole body disappears. You can’t really feel anything. It becomes supercomfortable. Those uncomfortable states of just a few days ago, kind of disappear when piti is in the mind and is having its effect on the body. Sometimes we feel, when piti is arising, that the body is pushed and pulled. It’s being swayed. It starts to rock from front to back, or side to side, sometimes it starts to get quite rapid. Sometimes it whirls, it starts to turn, the body is turning. The mind is meditating but the body is starting to move around.
If this starts to happen, make a note of that. If you feel some lightness in the body, make a note lightness. If you feel it’s being swayed or rocked, 212 make a note of those sensations of rocking. Stay with it, don’t get absorbed into the story of piti. Piti can be very enticing. It can be very exciting. When it starts to happen we kind of like it. We want it to happen again! Just note it when it’s arising. It’s not something that we want to get attached to. It is something that we want to develop but we don’t want to be attached. Sometimes it will make us feel as if we are off balance. You are going to tip backwards, you’re going to feel like you’re going to about fall over. You probably won’t! Don’t worry. All kind of weird sensation that arise in the body. Sometimes there’s thrills and chills. An excitement. Sometimes the body has little twitches, little shakes or you have a little vibration session. It starts tingling and shaking and twisting. Sometimes it gets quite violent. It feels like some lightening balls are coming through the body. Other times it just feels like the body’s just plugged in, a kind of buzz going on. We can think it’s quite nice when it starts to happen. There’s flashes like lightening or sparks like electricity. Sometimes you feel so light, that you feel like you’re floating away. Am I still on the ground? It might feel like you are flying. But you do feel fantastically comfortable and there is no real wish to change position or move. When I ring the bell, «I’m not moving from this (audience laughing). This is nice!» «But that nice curry is there for lunch.» – «I don’t care. I’m going to meditate through this.» Very comfortable this state of piti.
The important thing about piti, it gives us great interest in the practice. We start to see some results about our hard work. When it starts to happen, we feel validated. «Ok, it starts to happen.» Confidence arises, we put in an extra five or ten percent effort. And we draw down a lot of extra on that little bit of effort.
The Buddha told us, there is only one cause for rapture: wise attention. The arising of rapture is due to bringing in wholesome, rapturous feelings. When we are developing rapture, we can do so in a number of ways. Rapture arises when we do our Vipassana practice. Rapture arises when we’re contemplating the Buddha, the dhamma and sangha. When we start to think about the glory of the Buddha, how deep and wonderful his teaching is, when we start to think about all those monks and nuns of hundreds generations that did the practice and passed the teaching down to our current generation, we start to have great respect for what was going on. The teaching 213 that we have been exposed to. This can also bring feelings of rapture. I have experienced that myself, when going to see an old teacher. Sometimes the rapture can be so strong that we start crying. Some of you may have felt it in the loving kindness meditation. The body starts to feel so comfortable, it’s just tears of joy, or tears of relief, or tears of release. Sometimes piti can become so strong that the whole body starts to lean forward, it starts to go down like that, you can see people’s body rocking, backwards and forwards. They are not asleep! This is just the effect of piti on the body.
There are many examples of people who have gained enlightenment in the old texts after contemplating the Buddha, dhamma and sangha. This is a wonderful way of activating piti in our lives! When we think and reflect upon, when we consider about the Buddha, dhamma and sangha – that’s what we’ve been doing in our evening chanting.
So this piti, when it starts to arise, make sure you note it. Make sure you note the manifestations of it, the physical sensations. Make sure you note the pleasantness of the experience. Make sure you note the actual mind state itself. Try to feel the enthusiasm and the buzz, the electricity of piti that’s going through the mind. It will be very clear, the actual sensations and a lot of joy happening. Be careful not to attach to this state. Be careful not to get addicted to this mind state. Sometimes, it can happen on the first couple of days of a retreat, people get very excited and then they spend the next five days trying to get it back. Trying hard! Meditating with craving! Meditating with wanting! So at this stage of the retreat you should all be letting go your resistances, and you should be letting go of the past and the future coming into the present. When these types of mind state arise, just note them. Be aware that they are there. We are not clinging or holding to them. We don’t have to get super excited. Although you can be pleased, knowing that your practice is developing along the path, that has been very well mapped out. Piti is the fourth enlightenment factor that starts to arise.
13.3. Fifth enlightenment factor passaddhi#
Leading on from this stage of piti, is the fifth enlightenment factor, that is known as passaddhi which means tranquility. It means coolness of the mind, or calmness or stillness. When things become very tranquil, they 214 become extremely quiet, extremely still like the water on the surface of a lake with no wind thereout. Completely still and silent. The buzz, the electricity of piti starts to give way to this calmness and coolness in the mind. We become very, very still. Passaddhi arises when mental agitation or restlessness and worry have been put aside, that fourth hindrance. When we stop worrying about things, when we’ve stopped wanting and desiring something to happen, then tranquility starts to be activated. The body must be silent and still and the mind becomes silent and still as well.
The characteristic of tranquility is to calm the body and to silence and tranquilize agitation. As our meditation develops, energy activates our awareness, turns it on, mindfulness pays attention to the present moment, penetrating that object that is there, investigation thoroughly understands what this object is, that causes the letting go to take place, there is a great deal of excitement and buzz when this starts to occur, when we start to free the mind from sensuality and start to free the mind from the five hindrances, freeing the mind from past and future, so we are internalized with the mind and body states and we’re not fussed about them, we’re not disturbed by them, we are quite intent on just watching, the body feels quite comfortable – then as this starts to happen, the electric buzz of piti starts to decline a little bit and tranquility takes its place. They are both still there! They are both still functioning but tranquility becomes stronger and so things start to become very quiet, very still. Your body won’t need to move at all. You’ll be completely silent and completely comfortable. That four elements, that are normally changing in their ratios, normally giving some physical sensations in the body, will just be completely equalized. There won’t be any tough spots in the body, nothing uncomfortable. It will be perfectly calm. And a wonderful state of mind, which will allow us to sit for long periods of time. Two hours, three hours, comfortably, silent and still, observing, watching, noting, knowing and letting go.
The function of tranquility is to take the heat out of the mind, to suppress the heat of the defilements and the heat of sensual objects that normally attract us, so the mind can be released from remorse and worry and restlessness. When the mind is assaulted by these kinds of harmful states, it becomes hot and we become restless. When we become worried – «only two 215 days left of the retreat and still I’m not enlightened» – you start to worry, to think about that. When we give that up, when we resign ourselves to the fact that we are here and we are doing the practice, then tranquility can start and come to play. Tranquility of mind extinguishes the heat and replaces it with a calm coolness. Tranquility is probably the state you recognize as being meditation. When you think of meditation, sitting on top of a hill on a tropical island, it’s going to be still and quiet and beautiful. It’s probably what you are thinking about this state of tranquility. Do a little bit more work and it’s yours to experience. That is what meditation is like. It’s a little bit more effort and these states start to expose themselves. Often it’s not just the effort, but it’s just time – time for aligning all the conditions. We need put all the conditions in place and then these mental states start to arise. Without them being in place, it will never arise. We’ll just have thinking or exploring mentally ourselves, what we imagine those states of mind to be.
The manifestation of passaddhi is non-agitation of the mind and body. Complete stillness, great calm, great clarity, great tranquility. Our mind is normally in a state of agitation, jumping between the past and the future, going here and there. There isn’t any time for calmness or coolness. There’s no silence or peace. There are always thoughts coming into the mind, we’re always distracted by external objects, it gets very busy in the head! We normally don’t notice it, how busy things are until we come to a place like this and try to watch it. Often it can be quite horrifying to see the nature of our own mind, to see how it continuously thinks about itself. To watch that. – When our mind becomes scattered, it starts going into the objects, into the mental and physical phenomena. When it starts to identify with them in some way or enjoy them or delighting them, gain a sense of being from them, then we can perform unskillful actions or say unskillful things. Speech and actions can lead to remorseful states of mind. We feel, «I probably shouldn’t have said that», we feel we should apologize. We should, if we’ve been rude! When the mind gets assaulted by remorse and regret, there is no happiness. Tranquility has the ability of removing this remorse and this regret, this worry. When we still and calm things down, these states of mind evaporate. And then all the ripples in the mind cease. The eye pad becomes completely still. You can see very clearly the details of a good photograph.
216 So this factor of enlightenment follows on rapture, from piti. It arises when the previous one is already in place. Thus we need to get excited and enthusiastic about the practice. That will lead us to keep coming back to the mat. It leads us to keep coming back to the meditation hall or even keep coming back to the retreat, month after month. When these different kinds of pleasantness start to arise, it can be quite addictive. We want to experience that more often. The strongest rapture, the most pervasive rapture is associated with strong tranquility later on. As our rapture becomes stronger, our tranquility becomes calmer and stiller. In fact, tranquility starts to overcome the rapture. The coolness and calmness of tranquility kind of suppresses the electricity buzz of piti. Both of them are working together. They are both doing their jobs. One is making the mind enthusiastic, one is calming things down. They both have a function to play. They both have a role to play in balancing and managing the work of consciousness, the work of knowing.
All these mental factors have their job to do. We have to make sure they’re fully developed so they can perform their jobs correctly and properly when we need them to. So that they can assist consciousness from letting go of the mental and physical phenomena. These are the factors of enlightenment, the bojjhanga, these causative factors that lead to enlightenment.
Arousing tranquility, we need to reflect on the causes of tranquility. We need to have wise attention. We need to take note after a good sitting. After a good sitting, we should explore what just happened. What were the conditions that you just put in place? What was the time of the day? Had you eaten nothing? Had you eaten little? What posture were you sitting in? How did you begin the practice? Did you do some walking meditation or yoga before you sat down? Had you been listening to a talk before going into meditation? Explore those events before the state of tranquility arises. And try to replicate them, try to copy them so you get the same results. We are putting the conditions in place for things to unfold. So there’s a few tips for you, for arousing tranquility.
The first one is, take nutritious and sensible food. Make sure it’s the type of food not only satisfying the necessity of eating but it’s suitable for you. Make sure it’s actual food that’s been grown and produced and cooked properly, not only processed food or food from factories. Try to get food 217 from farms and gardens. Here on Koh Phangan, we have a great supply of good food. It should be the kind of food, we feel comfortable with. If you like to eat garlic and onion and chilli, if that has been your normal eating pattern for the last five or ten years, then you feel comfortable with that. It won’t be annoying or agitating. If you are used to eating fruit, if you are used to eating bland food or flavorless food, you have to organize that when you are doing your meditation practice. Make sure the body is comfortable with what kind of food it’s receiving. This will make the body calm and comfortable.
Secondly, we should meditate in an environment where the weather is good. We don’t want it too hot, we don’t want it too cold. We don’t want to have to wear ski-jackets meditating and big boots when we are walking around, but we also don’t want to be sweating continuously. So here on the island we get this good weather. It should be comfortable and convenient for you to meditate.
Thirdly, adopt a comfortable posture. To get the mind tranquil, you are going to have to make the body tranquil. And this can take time. Don’t pressure yourself to start siting in the full lotus, thinking, I will never meditate until I can do this posture. You’re maybe twisting yourself for quite some time before you start meditating. Make sure you find yourself a comfortable posture. We are used to sitting on a chair. That’s fine. I do recommend stretching your hips, your legs so that you can establish a comfortable meditation posture. Get it worked out in your first year of your meditation life so that you can become comfortable whenever you want to do a sitting.
You need to maintain a balanced effort. We shouldn’t become over enthusiastic. Work super-hard, continuously and then stop and just become bored and fed up with it and start again with super-enthusiasm. That’s stopping and starting. This is not great. We want to be continuous in our efforts. Have a balanced effort.
We should also avoid bad tempered or rough people if we are tying to develop tranquility. You know somebody who’s often excited or animated or often gets angry or voices their opinion strongly, people start to mouth at you, or talk rapidly or loudly at you. These are not the kind of people we want to associate to when we want to develop tranquility. We want to 218 be around tranquil and calm people. This will be very beneficial for you to develop your practice. Avoiding associating with people that are not calm, are not balanced, are not stable.
And lastly, we should incline our mind toward tranquility. We should be trying to incline our mind to quietness. While we are in the meditation center, calm down. Lower your eyes, lower your head. Come into a quiet zone by yourself. You will find that this is very beneficial for your sitting practice. In particular we want to be in the present moment, tranquil and calm. Holding the mind still and calm.
So this is the fifth enlightenment factor, passaddhi. Once piti and passaddhi have started to enter in your meditation scene, then the sixth enlightenment factor starts to be developed.
13.4. Sixth enlightenment factor samadhi#
The sixth enlightenment factor is known as samadhi. It’s normally translated as concentration but I prefer the translation of stability. Stillness. Samadhi is a factor of mind which lands on the object of observation and boroughs into it. Mindfulness penetrates the object, samadhi holds the mind there, keeps it still, stops the mind from leaving the scene. Mindfulness will bring us to the present, hold us in the present, penetrate the object so that we are there. When we do this continuously the mind stabilizes in this mode of operation. We call that samadhi or stillness or calmness. It’s a quietness of mind. It means that the mind sticks on the present object of observation. It sinks into it and it remains there with it so that it sees and knows things very clearly. Just like with the camera in the back of the truck, when it’s driving along and bouncing around, it’s difficult to get a clear image. So too, when the mind is still agitated and wandering, unstable with different thoughts and memories coming to create ripples on the surface of the water. Samadhi is that state of mind which will calm down the different mental factors. It also brings them together. It has this quality of pulling things together.
It has a characteristic of non-dispersal. Things don’t disperse or spreadout. Things are coming together, concentrating. But this word of concentration is often misunderstood as a state of intense directiveness, intense state of super-focusedness. But samadhi is a bit more than that. Our awareness 219 can still be broad but our attention can be very still at the same time. Samadhi has this characteristic of non-scattering. It’s the mental factor that pulls the other mental factors in together. It brings the energy and mindfulness and investigation, the rapture and the tranquility, it pulls these mental states together, closer to consciousness. So it gets a more unified experience. That’s when insight starts to really arise. That’s when we start to see things as they really are – Vipassana-knowledge.
Its function is to bring things together, collecting the mind together. And that’s a translation that is sometimes used for samadhi – collectedness. Things are becoming collected.
There are many different types of samadhi. When we are talking about samadhi today, we are talking about the enlightenment factor of samadhi, samadhi bojjhanga. This leads to samma-samadhi, or noble right concentration. We should not confuse samadhi with other types of samadhis. There are many different samadhis from many different traditions. Certainly the hindu traditions have many different types of samadhi. The Buddha’s tradition does as well. In fact we’ll find that at the heart of most spiritual and religious traditions, there is some kind of samadhi involved. Some kind of collectedness, some kind of one-pointedness, some kind of stillness that leads to an experience of something. Normally, a unification of mind, normally, a oneness are some descriptions. We should be careful that we don’t take the definitions of other traditions and try to apply those definitions to the Buddha’s teaching. The definition of samadhi in the Buddha’s teaching is quite clear and it doesn’t need to be added to by other religious traditions, whether it be the desert fathers from the Christian tradition or by Meister Eckhart, or from the Islamic tradition, the Kabhala or from the Jewish tradition, the Hindu tradition or any of the indigenous cultures that have their own types of samadhi. Putting the mind in a state of internal one-pointedness is not a new thing for humans. We’ve been doing it for a very long time. Granted in our western culture we don’t pay any attention to it at all. It hasn’t been something we’ve been interested in. But that’s changing.
So be aware when we are talking about samadhi in this context, we are talking about a very specific definition. Not the kind of samadhis that are available in the various tantric traditions or the other meditative traditions. 220 This is a kind of samadhi we find explained in the Pali texts and practiced throughout the Buddha’s world.
The particular type of samadhi that we are after, is one that leads to insight. It’s the samadhi which co-joins with our awareness so that we penetrate and see the three characteristics, the three general characteristics of all physical and mental phenomena. This is where our samadhi leads to. This kind of samadhi has its bases in the four foundations of mindfulness. If you are developing your concentration based on the four foundations of mindfulness using real objects that arise – not conceptual objects, using real objects of mental and physical phenomena that are presently arising – then we start to develop the samadhi the Buddha is talking about. The samadhi that leads us to seeing things clearly, that allows wisdom to arise, wisdom into the three characteristics of impermanence, dukkha and non-self. For sure it’s wisdom that sees these characteristics, but the proximate cause of wisdom is samadhi. And this is the kind of samadhi that we are developing. The one that happens quite calmly and automatically whilst we are developing the four foundations of mindfulness. We should take great care in ensuring that our mind is always open and feels spacious. We shouldn’t feel tight. It shouldn’t feel condensed, it shouldn’t feel tense, it shouldn’t be dark. It should be light, airy, open and spacious the feeling of being concentrated in the present moment. This type of concentration leads us to seeing things as they really are.
Of course, there is other types of samadhi practiced in the Buddha’s teaching as well. There are various states of liberation and various states of concentrations using both ultimate objects and conceptual objects. But the particular type of concentration we are talking about, as I said, is this enlightenment factor of samadhi.
Vipassana practice is aimed at developing wisdom and the completion of various insights, finally arriving at equanimity, developing the mind to this seventh enlightenment factor. When we’re watching the rise and the fall of the abdomen, when we’re being mindful to the process of the movement, the physical sensations that are arising, with each moment of energy and effort, you expand in cultivating the present moment awareness, there is a corresponding mental activity of penetrating the object. So we’re activating 221 and penetrating the present moment doing this over and over again until the mind stabilizes in this mode of watching. This is the type of samadhi that we’re after. The type of samadhi that stabilizes and is able to see the rise and fall of natural mental and physical phenomena. When it sees in this way, it will start to let them go. Wisdom will be activated and the letting go process begins. We start to purify our mind and body process. We start to purify the moment. We can have a state of purification from moment to moment. Our job is to extend that out as much as we can. The mind becomes purified because the hindrances can’t enter. Those defiled states are having troubles entering our experience because the enlightenment factors have taken the place of the five hindrances and we’re on the road to development. Samadhi has the power to gather together all the other mental factors into a unified force so that all the factors can do their job. They are all arising together and they are all ceasing together but they have their own jobs and their own functions. And we need to understand what these jobs and functions are and to make sure that we are developing them. Quite often people forget a few different factors and so we leave a few out. Our enlightenment factors are not fully developed and the faculties are not balanced. Wisdom is neglected, or extra energy is neglected, awareness is not penetrative, but concentration can be strong, the mind just becomes still, not really knowing anything. Awareness and wisdom is unable to keep up with the state of concentration. So the mind just goes…it falls down a well. It stays there in stillness and happiness and a little bit of brightness. It stays still and calm. People can become quite attached to this state of mind. In fact we can develop it that it becomes a very firm base for the arising of self. «I am a person that gets concentrated and here it is.» We can start to use that base of samadhi not for awareness and wisdom but as a foundation for the sense of self. We start to appropriate and identify with that state of samadhi. We believe we’ve got it! We are the owner of samadhi or we can do it or this is my samadhi! We start to identify with this state of stillness and calmness.
When we practice correctly with all the enlightenment factors developing, and when we are looking out for balancing the faculties, our awareness and wisdom will be able to keep up with each different stage of samadhi. As our samadhi deepens, our awareness and wisdom need to be sharp enough to 222 catch up. They need to be able to note and know every stage that the mind gets itself into. We need to note and know from the wandering stages, when we are in the past and future and wandering and thinking, we need to understand when the body is becoming uncomfortable through those stages, we need to understand when piti and tranquility are starting to arise. We need to note and know and let go of them even though they are very pleasant. We need to stay objective towards everything. If we start to identify with anything the object gets sucked in and becomes a story of self. So we need to be highly alert, highly aware. Be on the lookout for any stages or any platforms on which the sense of self can establish itself. It’s very tricky this craving! It’s been infiltrating and overcoming mental and physical states for a long time. So our job is to watch out where it may land even in our states of samadhi, even when the mind is becoming still. We still have to have a mind that is non-attached. In fact, as we develop and let go, develop and let go, we realize that this is the only way for further development. To let go of what has already been achieved. To relinquish and let go and release ourselves even from deep states of concentration. This too has to be let go. The wisdom tells us. It’s nice, you can stay here for a while, but even this needs to be let go of.
Concentration is the proximate cause for the unfolding of wisdom. And once the mind is quiet and still, there is space for wisdom to arise. The gap, the space between the knowing and the physical and mental phenomena gets wider and wider to the point where we are not attaching to the mental and physical states as they arise and pass away.
The Buddha tells us, it’s continuous wise attention that leads to this state of samadhi aimed at developing concentration. The aim of concentration is the cause of developing concentration. It works on itself. One stage of concentration leads to the next stage. So we have to incline our mind consistently to become stable – not only aware and present, but making our mind still and calm as well. And this happens over time. As we start to practice, we become more and more skillful at entering the state of calmness, maintaining our awareness there, and then, releasing the mind from the calmness, coming out. This is developed over time.
13.5. First jhana#
223 When these enlightenment factors are starting to be developed in this way, the stage of concentration starts to be developed. The eight factor of the noble eightfold path, the last factor is samma-samadhi. This samma- samadhi has four parts to it. The first jhana, the second jhana, the third jhana and the fourth jhana. These are stages of concentration or shall we say, they are stages of letting go. This is how far and how much you have been able to let go. That determines those states of mind your samadhi is in. We said this week that our meditation practice is just the practice of letting go. When we’ve let go of thoughts of sensuality, when we’ve let go of the hindrances, when we’ve let go of the painful physical sensations that arise in the body, then we start to enter into the first jhana. And the Buddha gives us some directions on how to do this and what we should do when this state arises. There is a case where, «a monk quite secluded from sensual pleasure, secluded from unwholesome states enters into and abides in the first jhana which has rapture and pleasure born of seclusion accompanied by applied and sustained thought.» There are a few things in there:
Secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states – they have been let go of.
We develop initial and sustained application – this is direct thought and evaluative thought. We develop these in our meditation practice. We are aiming and sustaining our attention on various objects. The «initial thought» to send the mind to the rise and the fall. The «sustained thought» to keep our mind right there. Initial and sustained application.
Piti starts to arise and happiness starts to arise.
These mind states are found in the first jhana. When this starts to happen, we become secluded, secluded from unwholesome states. The Buddha gives us instructions on what to do with this: «He permeates, pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. There is nothing of the entire body unpervaded by the rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.» So when we notice that rapture or piti and happiness is starting to arise in our meditation practice, the Buddha’s directions are to fill the body with this rapture, fill the mind with this rapture. Completely. Permeate, pervade, suffuse and fill – which is not fear these mental states! 224 The Buddha is telling us to directly use them, to contemplate it. He gives us a simile: «Just as if a skilled bathman, or a bathman’s apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin with a little bit of water, kneading it together, sprinkling it with some water and so that the ball of bath powder would become wet, it would become saturated, moisture-ladden, permeated within and permeated without, but would nevertheless not drip.» We got a ball of clothe-washing powder, if you like, made into a ball with a little bit of water. The ball is wet and moist, but it is not so wet and so moist that it falls apart. And that’s what we do with our body at the states of rapture and pleasantness when they start to arise. We don’t get all excited about it and start identifying with it. We don’t get excited and say, «oh I can do it». We don’t start to subjectify the experience. And we also don’t become scared of the experience. When the mind starts to become very, very still and the breath gets very, very short, becomes very quick, don’t get any fear. Don’t buy into the fear. If fear starts to arise in the mind, make a note of it: ‘worrying, worrying, scared, fear’, whatever word you like to use. Step away from that fear and allow the qualities of the samadhi experience to fill the mind and body process completely.
When we do this, we enter into the first jhana, the first jhana experience. For us to progress any further from this, we’re going to have to do some more letting go. When we let go, when we establish our awareness and we get to a stage of momentum where we don’t have to activate our awareness in the present and send it to the abdomen and sustain it at the abdomen – we’ve done that practice so often that the mind knows how to do it itself. It does it automatically. It can do it by itself to the stage of momentum, where we are still and present continuously in the present moment. When we get to this stage of observation, it becomes a little bit effortless. We don’t have to try so much. This particularly happens on longer retreats. Something after a month or two months, when we have been constantly activating and the mind knows what it’s doing it becomes automatic.
13.6. Second jhana#
225 We start to enter into a deeper state of samadhi, deeper concentration, when we let go of the directed and sustained thinking that’s needed to keep us in the present moment with the first jhana. When we let them go, then we go into a more stable concentration. We enter into the second jhana. «And furthermore, with the stilling of directed thought and evaluation, he enters into and abides in the second jhana which has rapture and pleasure born of concentration.» A unification of awareness which is free from directed and evaluating thought. There is internal assurance or confidence. «He permeates, pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of concentration. There is nothing of the entire body unpervaded by the rapture and pleasure born of concentration.»
So in the second jhana we really start to experience samadhi. The rapture and pleasure are born of concentration. In the first jhana the rapture and pleasure are born of seclusion. There is a certain level of happiness from being secluded from the hindrances. As soon as we suppress those hindrances our mind completely changes. The hindrances keep us busy with non-sense. Sensual desire, aversion, laziness, boredom, restlessness, worry and doubt. These five hindrances really block us. The first jhana is an experience of being secluded from them. The second jhana is an experience of being secluded from initial and sustained thinking. We don’t need to use thinking in our meditation anymore. We become still. The mind has become concentrated and we start to see things as they really are. At this stage in our practice, the knowledge of arising and passing away becomes quite clear. We see mental and physical phenomena arising and passing and we don’t hold on to them, we don’t identify with them. It’s just stuff that is arising and passing – very, very rapidly. And the mind settles in to a very nice state of observation. There is an internal assurance about that. We are quite confident in what we are doing. Be careful in this stage of the concentration practice, that you don’t become addicted to it. The piti can become very strong in this stage. For many people there is a lot of light. Light is shining throughout the body coming out of the mind. Things are very calm and very peaceful. We feel an enormous amount of faith and confidence in the Buddha and his teaching. We think it’s miraculous and wonderful. There is a lot of strength 226 in the practice. At this stage we start to think, «well, it’s time to shave the head and become a nun or a monk». We start to really enjoy the practice and we start to see things as they really are.
The Buddha gives us a simile. He says, «just like a lake with spring water, welling up from within, having no inflow from the east, west, north or south – the sky is periodically supplying some showers – so that a cool font of water would be welling up from within.» It’s coming from inside. There is a cool water coming to fill the lake, so that the cool water comes to completely dominate the lake. «There being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool water. So too, a monk pervades, suffuses, fills and permeates this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of concentration.» There is nothing of the entire body unpervaded by this concentration.
So this is the second jhana. This is as far as we go today in examining this enlightenment factor of concentration. Tomorrow we’ll start to have a look at the seventh enlightenment factor, the factor of equanimity or evenness. This factor of equanimity plays an important role in the third jhana and the fourth jhana. We’ll start to see how the development of these enlightenment factors and their completion and fulfillment, fulfill the last factor of the noble eightfold path. The four jhanas come to completion when these enlightenment factors have been successfully developed. When the enlightenment factors are full and complete and stabilized, the fourth noble truth arises. It’s the path! The noble eightfold path arises in the mind of the meditator. Right view is established, right attention is there, previously established right speech, right action and right livelihood, we’ve been putting forth effort and mindfulness continuously in the present so that the four jhanas start to arise. And this is how the eightfold path develops. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow.
For this morning I think that should be enough for us. We are going to continue with some walking mediation.