first jhāna is easy. all you need to do is relax (passaddhi/pacification)

[frank k]

first jhāna is easy. all you need to do is relax (passaddhi/pacification)
http://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/20 ... to-do.html

[confusedlayman]

first jhāna is easy. all you need to do is relax (passaddhi/pacification)
http://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/20 ... to-do.html

true .. sadu sadu sadu!

Mind on object (mind awake) but body asleep.. it is easy said than done for me.. I have trouble keeping mind awake.. when body asleep mind also go asleep most of the time...

[Inedible]

Part of it is to avoid moving your body. Your body tends to wait for your mind to go to sleep before it does. When you move, you tell your body that your mind is awake. Also, moving one tends to move the other.

[confusedlayman]

Part of it is to avoid moving your body. Your body tends to wait for your mind to go to sleep before it does. When you move, you tell your body that your mind is awake. Also, moving one tends to move the other.

yes body should be kept very still like paralysis not move single inch bit

[Inedible]

There was a course on using waking sleep paralysis to have lucid dreams and OBEs called Lucidology. It has advice on converting partial sleep paralysis to full inability to move. And I think the ability to come out of jhana quickly is one of the masteries. To start with, get a digital recorder and record yourself sleeping. Use software to find the pattern of breathing in and out to see what the body likes in sleep. Use that pattern when you want mind awake / body asleep. That was the main tool for reaching awake sleep paralysis. I tried it more than once but I couldn't hear my breathing well enough.

[confusedlayman]

There was a course on using waking sleep paralysis to have lucid dreams and OBEs called Lucidology. It has advice on converting partial sleep paralysis to full inability to move. And I think the ability to come out of jhana quickly is one of the masteries. To start with, get a digital recorder and record yourself sleeping. Use software to find the pattern of breathing in and out to see what the body likes in sleep. Use that pattern when you want mind awake / body asleep. That was the main tool for reaching awake sleep paralysis. I tried it more than once but I couldn't hear my breathing well enough.

those use scientific equipment which I don't want

[Inedible]

What are you using to participate here if not scientific equipment?

[confusedlayman]

What are you using to participate here if not scientific equipment?

Buddha mever used those tricks.. he told mindfullness of breath ...

[frank k]

on keeping the body still in a sitting posture,
that's a useful technique under certain conditions to accomplish certain goals, but not a good general rule suitable for all stages of meditation and all postures.

Especially, don't force your body to be completely still if it compromises your ability to relax fully. Being perfectly still in sitting but having pain, tension, and an agitated mind will get you nowhere.

[confusedlayman]

on keeping the body still in a sitting posture,
that's a useful technique under certain conditions to accomplish certain goals, but not a good general rule suitable for all stages of meditation and all postures.

Especially, don't force your body to be completely still if it compromises your ability to relax fully. Being perfectly still in sitting but having pain, tension, and an agitated mind will get you nowhere.

thanks

[Inedible]

Modern technology can be a good thing. You can talk with a Sangha online. You can use devices to give feedback on the state of your body and mind. Now almost everyone carries a phone the way everyone has their breath with them.

[User1249x]

if it was very hard to do then the dhamma wouldn't survive so long.

[Inedible]

if it was very hard to do then the dhamma wouldn't survive so long.

How long have you had jhana? Also, have you reached the other jhana states?

[User1249x]

if it was very hard to do then the dhamma wouldn't survive so long.

How long have you had jhana? Also, have you reached the other jhana states?

For a bunch of other reasons it's imo better if you don't ask that. I will tell you tho because we are all somewhat in a similar training, since 2015 on and off. I've gotten normal 'jhana light' and some variants of it, also 4th jhana based on wind wholeness (doing anapanasati), asubha nimittas (doing asubha) and sannavedananirodha (first year training).

What i never saw is 'white nimitta', it's supposedly the foremost but it doesn't seem to be the inclination, at least without specific development i doubt that it wil come up. I wouldn't be surprised if surpassing the wholeness of wind there will be arupa jhana at some point tho.

I think we mostly fail because we don't train and for attaining jhana the sila needs to be impecable to the best one one's ability, day after day, one needs to push good behavior, correct behavior as a matter of fact. Eventually , when there is an opening, the mind unifies based on it's inclination and prior development.

There is little to no technique in meditation and further one get's into jhana thus lest room for a technique that there is, it's all about calming down in ordinary sense of the word before this calming down starts to calm down conception & perception of elements due to the mind's development. It's a natural process and is the result of all the development on and off the cushion in good & bad times.

It's a matter of going sober for a few days and exercising restraint, being your best self as in on your best behavior. It doesn't matter how long you sit but predetermining the amount of time is very good because you will emerge from absorption on that time and you won't have to think about whether or not your resolve on emergence is as it should be.

Other than that, i find that sometimes i enter jhana when i don't expect to and don't enter it when i expect it to, sometimes i enter and expect it. By expect i mean making a general evaluation of the probability of rightly concentrating under those particular circumstances.

I have experimented a lot training on my own and have come to conclude that one should make things as easy as possible and that means not seeing people, not seeing women especially, for my next retreat i will probably get food delivered and not see anybody.

That being said i think homelife, even with a family, can too be set up to function well.

I said there is little to no technique and that is true in some sense but one needs to be skilled in picking themes, rousing factors of awakening, removing distracting thoughts, recognizing hindrances and these are all very in your face practical daily skills.

[Pondera]

Nimitta is a mental projection of an inner chakra.

Red, blue, yellow, and white ... these all exist along the spine and at the crown of the head.

If and when you see them while cultivating samatha bhavana - it is because you have opened a chakra.

Cross cultural study into the nature of jhana can drastically lessen the intensity and struggle one commonly associates with attaining or even remotely approaching jhana.