Why JHANA (meditative absorption)?

Gary Sanders (Against the Stream), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha (FFlittleD/flickr.com)

 

(tumblr.com/mbe020whlb1rhekwnol)

The Secular Buddhist and Full Contact Enlightenment seem to like the way I expressed my experience of meditative absorption (jhana) or access concentration. And a reader writes in: 

 

"Good article. [I'm] interested to know how [your] "the Buddha mastered them and found they weren't the 'be all, end all,' so why bother?" thinking came [about] for you... being that the Buddha spoke so highly of jhana and that it is the eighth factor of the Eightfold Path?"

There are two reasons why I previously thought the jhanas weren't all that. And I'm not really sure which came first, or if it even matters.
 

1. Most of the Western teachers I sit with seem to just gloss over the jhanas. It's been my perception that they do not place any real importance on the practice [of tranquility and  deep prerequisite "right concentration," or samma samadhi, the eighth factor, defined by the Buddha as the first four absorptions].

2. I just assumed that the jhanas were another practice the Buddha learned, mastered, and discarded (like other extreme ascetic practices) before going to sit under the Bodhi tree.

 

After reading books and listening to talks from Ayya Khema, Leigh Brasington, Daniel Ingram, and others, I have found great, almost indispensable, value in jhana practice, not just to sharpen the quality of my concentration, but really as part of my path.

 
The Buddha and jhana
Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Deep meditation (mysecretpsychiclife.com)

  

(AlisonRyde/flickr.com)

Having edited the article, I have a different explanation. Siddhartha, who only became "the Buddha" after opening himself to the blissful absorptions, had NOT mastered them. He had rushed through them precisely without gaining mastery or lingering in the supersensual bliss and eventual equanimity they offer. One can move through them rather rapidly like a stone skipping on the surface of a very deep lake.
 

This explanation, which is not my own but that of advanced jhana masters like Ven. Dhammadipa and his teacher, the foremost living expert on Buddhist meditation, Pa Auk Sayadaw, resolves a historical problem.

That problem is understanding why Siddhartha's experience under the Bodhi tree makes it sound as if jhana were a new concept when he must have experienced the jhanas to some degree -- however lightly -- to have become disappointed with the teachings of his former teachers.
  
After all, those teachers called their highest jhanic attainments "enlightenment" and "nirvana" (moksha or "final liberation").

The worlds those rarefied jhanas lead one to be reborn in have staggeringly long average lifespans of as many as 80,000 aeons, or relative "eternities," which is nevertheless nowhere near one actual eternity.
 
Under the Bodhi tree the Bodhisat is said to have remembered a childhood absorption experience. And this led him to wonder why he had been meditating fearing pleasure divorced from sensuality? Problem: Buddhist history is told as if the ascetic Siddhartha had been immersed in the jhanas for years.

After all, had he not already used the first jhana, recalled from childhood, within those other dharmas (the Doctrines and Disciplines of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta) to get to the equanimous immaterial (fifth through eighth) jhanas?
  
Technically yes, but not if he just zipped through the material (first through fourth) without mastering them or permitting himself to bask in the bliss they offer.

 

"Mastery" is defined in Buddhism as being able to enter them at will, emerge from them as predetermined, and to choose which to enter and abide in. One may, if one wishes, stay absorbed for seven days, and that can be done without breathing. Although Siddhartha climbed to the seventh and eighth jhanas with his teachers, he was striving toward a goal that was not to be found in these attainments. Those teachers taught that those attainments themselves were the goal -- the consummate accomplishment of liberation (moksha).

But the Bodhisat understood -- due to a great deal of past life experience with the absorptions -- that no jhana is bodhi (enlightenment), nirvana (the end of all suffering), or the final solution to the problem of rebirth (samsara). Jhanas are temporary liberations, not final liberation (moksha).
 
All of the jhanas are heavy good-karma and therefore lead to rebirth within samsara, to destinations corresponding to superhuman worlds beyond the Sensual Sphere.
 
Each jhana has three rebirth-levels corresponding to the level of mastery attained. Full mastery of the first jhana, for example, leads to a "heaven" or space plane called Great Divinity (the plane of Maha Brahma), whereas merely touching that jhana leads only to rebirth (if held at the dying moment) to rebirth in "7th Heaven" called Brahma's Retinue, a world of shining ones in space (parisajja brahma akasha deva loka, Large Chart: 31 Planes of Existence, p. 80).

Right Concentration

Moreover, in answer to your question, we are rarely taught that the Buddha "spoke highly of the absorptions." In fact for a few centuries now, Theravada teachers fearfully dissuade practitioners from taking up a serenity practice (samatha). They seem to suffering from the same obstacle Siddhartha faced that blocked his attainment of enlightenment. Who thinks jhanic bliss is a trap?
 
The fear is that meditators will become attached to the joy and cling detrimentally to the conditioned phenomena of meditative experience.

What is more important, samadhi or vipassana, concentration or insight? The question is misleading because suggests a false dichotomy. It is not one OR the other.

There is no mindfulness without concentration, no concentration without mindfulness. And without mindfulness there can be no insight. Mindfulness helps everything, but it is concentration, whether as access or absorption, that purifies and intensifies heart/mind to breakthrough.

What is more important, the top half of the pyramid or the bottom half?

The top half, obviously! Is it "obvious"? No, the top half! What top without a bottom, what height without a foundation, what upstairs access without a firm downstairs? There is no elevated part without a supporting foundation part, except in the abstract. In practice, no one gets to liberating-insight without a necessary and sufficient amount of concentration. The weaker the mind/heart's ability to focus and stay on the object of insight, the less likely any breakthrough is to be expected.

But here's the thing. Getting to the pinnacle of insight does not technically take mastery in absorption, although mastery in absorption certainly makes it much more likely!
 
Without mastery up to the fourth absorption, the sustained practice of Dependent Origination (going backward from current circumstances to their origin rooted in karma and past lives) or seeing existential phenomena such as particles and mind-moments (kalapas and cittas) is very difficult and unsustainable.

 

Can it happen, can it be accomplished? Yes. As unlikely as it is, it can. Access concentration, which is inferior to full absorption even to the weakest level of the first jhana, is enough. This is a technical point; however, it is taken as gospel. No one is allowed a choice. Access is all that is offered nowadays as if absorption were impossible.

Although access is technically enough, it does not mean most meditators will succeed; it only means that at least one person has succeeded.

For example, a person may win a battle against a titan with just a sling and a single stone. But every human who embarks on such a battle would be wise to arm him or herself far better than that!
 
Fear of what jhana might be or lead to with no actual experience of it is like a sinister plot to make sure no one succeeds in reaching stream entry. In a popular misconception of Mahayana, this might seem a welcome thing. Gawd forbid anyone actually enter upon becoming enlightened before having "saved" everyone else.
 

Mara Devaputra, the arch-angelic Cupid/Lucifer figure residing in the highest Sense Sphere world, known as Brahma's Retinue, wants no one to attain stream entry or jhana. For that entails escape from samsara and his influence, be it temporary (by higher rebirth) or permanent (by making an end of rebirth).

Since the jhanas lead to rebirth beyond the Sense Sphere, in the Fine Material and Immaterial Spheres, Mara does not want anyone attaining jhana. Strangely, Mahayana speaks only of six planes of existence when the historical Buddha spoke of 31 such planes, most of them deva worlds of light.
 
The six planes Mahayana teaches are merely those within the Sense Sphere. Why is that?

And within Theravada meditation circles, why are various monastic communities and communities of practitioners still opposing the Buddha's teachings and his urgings that we establish ourselves in at least the first four absorptions? It is one of the bases of success.
 

Parable of the Raft

(Mark Downey/danitadelimont.com)

  
In the "Parable of the Raft," the Buddha says that if one wants to cross over from this shore fraught with dangers over to a further shore beyond danger, one should gather just enough wood and material for a raft and strive diligently with just the strength of one's paddling limbs to get across. That might be enough. That would be viriya, a "virile" effort and exertion. Such outbursts are rarely fruitful. Instead, persistent balanced-effort is the gradual path the Buddha taught. Or one might die trying by such an outburst. One might find that poorly fabricated raft is not nearly enough to cross over the great flood (ogha, samsara). Yes, "enough" concentration is enough, but more is safer and gives one greater certainty that the goal will be reached.
 

(stepoutsidenow)

Sadly, not everyone can attain absorption, so access concentration becomes the only route available. But this is no reason to disparage absorption or dissuade others from following the gradual path the Buddha taught. If someone only has a flimsy foundation, one may try to use it. Or it may be wiser to make it more stable before trying, and failing, and giving up. A human life is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to reach the goal. Maybe that is why some of us were reborn here. It is easier to glimpse nirvana from the lower deva worlds, BUT it is less likely that one will have the impetus to strive for it. Who needs "the end of suffering" when living on a plane without much overt suffering. Obvious suffering in the human world reminds us of the true nature of samsara (that all things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal) and the great danger inherent in it. Danger? Until stream entry there is an ever-present danger of falling into unfortunate realms (rebirth destinations) for indeterminate periods of time during which one forgets the goal because one is simply trying to survive and endure the misery. Then one neglects the goal when reborn in fortunate superhuman worlds, so that it can be aeons before one gets back to any vision of freedom through enlightenment and nirvana.

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Meditation: gaining "absorption" (jhana)

Gary Sanders (Dharma Punx), edited by Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Every counterpart sign or nimitta is different prior to jhana (lemeach/tumblr.com)

 

(simpsoncrazy.com)

I have purposely not done a lot of reading on the meditative absorptions (jhanas). My thinking has been, "The Buddha mastered them and found they weren't the 'be all, end all,' so why bother?" This was what I thought until a retreat I sat this summer.

A big motivation for going on a retreat in Northern California at Spirit Rock led by Theravada Buddhist nuns was

• to push myself
• to step outside of my comfort zone
• to go on retreat with teachers I wasn't already friends with
• to be  surrounded by people I'm not closely connected to
• to visit a place I haven't been before. 

The week-long retreat started off great. The first two days were a relief, decompressing from the daily grind of being a suburban working father of two, a husband, an Against the Stream Buddhist Mediation Society recovery group leader, a Santa Clarita [Saint Clare/Sainted Clarity] Valley mindfulness meditation circle facilitator, and music lover.

Spirit Rock is beautiful, very peaceful with rolling landscapes, and I felt great to be there. Then came the pain. I'd never experienced pain this bad on retreat. It started with my knees leading me to escape to a chair for a bit. Then it got worse. My lower back was screaming in pain, and more of my sitting had to be done in a chair. I even graduated to standing when pain and sleepiness got overwhelming. That was all just "pain," which could not compare to the "suffering" to come:

"What, me worry?"

Doubt and anger started creeping in. I began imagining, "These nuns are sadistic! How can we do silent hour-long sits WITHOUT guidance!?" "If I can't handle this, all these old people must really be hurting!!" "I can't even do metta (loving-kindness meditation) anymore; I'll never be able to do it again!"

We had exit interviews on the second to last day. I talked a little about what was arising. Then to my good fortune, before the last sit of the night, I ran into one of the nuns outside the quiet zone. We talked about my practice, and I got some answers. 

I described what had been happening for awhile in my practice, which turned out to be "access concentration." The nun told me about a technique -- picking one spot on the tip of the nose or nostrils and just staying exclusively on that single spot. She told me more, but apart from the subtleties, this was the salient point. Stick with a single spot to the exclusion of everything else.

I went into the last 60 minute sit of the night, taking to the cushion in Burmese pose, focusing just on a point inside one nostril. I stayed there like a cat at a mouse hole. 

Success

"Heyyy, it's all good!"

Before long, ALL of the hindrances fell away. With persistent effort, I stayed on that spot the whole sit. I sat like a ROCK. No pain, no discomfort, and to my astonishment, I felt an overwhelming joy (piti) washed through me. [Perhaps my earlier pain had been a clearing or an obstacle hindering me and encouraging me to give up like my very own struggle with "Mara"?]

The bell rang an hour later as the group called it a night. I was still glowing. The rest of the night, I felt blissful, effervescent, full of joy. It was spilling out of me. My original intention for going on retreat came to mind. I was flooded with total appreciation for both nuns leading. I slept like a baby.

The next morning was our first and only sit of the day. I went right to the single point of focus again. BUT this time it didn't take much effort at all. With zero hindrances, I sat like a rock, euphoric, saturated with joy. Time FLEW by.

Cut to today. I've read up on the meditative absorptions, the jhanas, a bit. I have been practicing the single point of focus a lot, but not necessarily as a daily practice. And I have not been reaching the joy and bliss I experienced on retreat. 

Recently, I read [Ayya Khema's student] Leigh Brasington's instructions on reaching the first jhana. I followed his instructions thoroughly. I started with loving-kindness for myself then went to the single point of concentration. 

Joy

"Who me, worried? Ha!"

Once the breath started to become barely noticeable [because the real object of meditation is not gross breathing but this very subtle breath, the calmed breath, which one could speculate may be prana], I stayed with that then switched to the pleasant feeling of the semi-smile I'd been holding most of the sit.

 

[Where attention goes, energy flows.] As that pleasant feeling built up more and more, I felt my smile grow bigger than my head. It was smiling on its own. I didn't will it. I wasn't trying to smile. The pleasant wholesome sensation -- which was more pleasing than the sensual pleasure I'd been chasing all my life -- seemed to be swirling, flowing, in motion. It was taking over my whole head, then my whole body then, surprisingly, it just kept expanding outside of my body, my environment... 

Not sure how long it was, but I stayed with it until it seemed to just fade a little. Once I felt grounded in my own body, I got off the cushion. It was quite late at night, and I felt very joyful and contented. Again I got to sleep like a baby. [Maybe this is what Zen means by beginner's mind, throttling back the breath to the softest purr, a sweet infantile innocence and peace.]

The Five Hindrances

Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry hindrances

(Quest4pce/flickr)

Five negative mental states impede success with meditation (jhāna and bhāvanā) and lead away from enlightenment and nirvana. These states are:

1. Sensual desire: craving for pleasurable stimulation of the senses
2. Anger or ill-will: feelings of malice, annoyance, aversion
3. Sluggishness-sleepiness (sloth-torpor): lack of physical or mental energy
4. Restlessness-worry: the inability to calm the mind
5. Skeptical doubt: lack of conviction, confidence, trust

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What is "right concentration"?

Kalyani, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit jhana section, Dhyāna in Buddhism

The Buddha used the absorptions before, during, and after enlightenment (Hooper Project).

 

The Buddha explains right concentration (samma samādhi), a Factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, as the first four meditative absorptions (jhānas).

  

According to the commentaries, there is a stage of meditation the meditator reaches before entering absorption. This stage is called access or neighborhood concentration (upacāra-samādhi).

   

Abandoning the Five Hindrances -- sensual craving, ill will, sloth and torpor (physical and mental sluggishness), restlessness and worry, and skeptical doubt -- marks entry into access concentration.

   

These hindrances are directly opposed by the Factors of Absorption, which grow in strength and stability until absorption occurs.

1. Initial application (of the mind's attention to an object)
2. Sustained (single pointed) application on the object
3. Joy (a kind of rapture or effervescence)
4. Happiness (sukha)
5. One-pointedness (when the mind holds and concentration feels effortless)

In practice, the Factors of Absorption:

1. Bring the mind to the object (applying, arousing)
2. Keep the mind with the object (sustaining, sticking to it)
3. Find great interest in the object (meticulous fascination)
4. Make the mind/heart contented with the object (bliss)
5. Unify the mind with the object (fix, hold, stick).

In the Neighborhood

Access or neighborhood concentration is an unstable state. It is in the vicinity of absorption. The mind is becoming well collected on an object, but it is not yet at a state of absorption. Rather than getting excited with greater success, it must maintain an even keel and ease into this calm, collected concentration.

  

The difference between access concentration and absorption is that the factors become strengthened to such a degree that they bring about a qualitative shift in consciousness. It moves up a level. The mind no longer functions on the ordinary sensory level. Access concentration is not mentioned separately in the sutras.

   

However, there are several discourses where a person gains insight into the Dharma hearing a teaching from the Buddha. Often their minds are described as suddenly being freed of hindrances when this occurs. Some have identified this as being a type of access concentration.^[Note] The equivalent of access concentration in Tibetan commentaries is nyer-bsdogs.^[Note]

   

As one enters neighborhood concentration, some meditators may experience vivid mental imagery that may be distracting or useful. The useful variety comes in the form of a "sign" (nimitta), which is a mental counterpart image to the external meditation object.

   

It can be as vivid and real as if seen by the eye. (It is, in fact, a fine-material object created by the mind). The meditator is fully aware and conscious of seeing this mental image. This is discussed in the early texts, and expanded upon in Theravāda commentaries.^[Note]

  

Different meditators experience different mental images. Some may not experience any mental images at all. The same meditator over multiple meditation sessions may experience different mental images for each session. Mental images may be pleasant, fascinating, neutral, frightening, or shocking.

• It is crucial NOT to switch attention from one's meditation object to the sign being formed by the mind. It should be ignored. As one ignores it and continues to dwell fixed on one's object, the nimitta will move to take the place of the object. The meditator has changed nothing. The process and mind have naturally chosen themselves. The meditator has one game or job and one alone -- to keep the meditation object in mind at all times.

As concentration builds and the mind/heart becomes collected, gross feelings of breathing and of having a physical body disappear, leaving only a sense of pure awareness. Of course, breathing is still present (except in the fourth absorption, where it is not needed and no harm is experienced from its absence however impossible that may be for those who have not experienced it).

  

At this stage inexperienced meditators may become afraid, thinking they are going to die if they continue the concentration because the feeling of breathing and the feeling of having a physical body seems to have completely disappeared. They should instead be encouraged by this experience and abandon fear, which is a mental poison (dosa, aversion). Continue, knowing that this is an excellent sign of progress toward full concentration and absorption (jhāna).^[Note]

 

Mastering jhāna

(Keith Maguire/flickr.com)

A meditator first masters the four lower or material (rupa) absorptions before mastering the higher or immaterial ones (arupa). There are five aspects to this "mastery":

1. Adverting: the ability to turn attention toward the Factors of Absorption one by one after emerging from jhāna, wherever and whenever one wants and for as long as one wants.
2. Attaining: the ability to quickly enter absorption.
3. Resolving: the ability to remain absorbed for exactly the predetermined length of time one sets.
4. Emerging: the ability to emerge from absorption quickly without difficulty.
5. Reviewing: the ability to look back on the absorption and its factors with retrospective-knowledge immediately after adverting to them.

The early sutras state that "the most exquisite of recluses" are able to attain any of the absorptions and abide in them without difficulty.

   

There is a kind of saint (arhat) who is "liberated in both ways" -- fluent in attaining absorption as well as having mastered insight (vipassana). The first is a temporary liberation of the heart from the hindrances and defilements, the latter a cutting off which is permanent. Someone liberated only through dry insight does not live on in perpetual bliss. But one liberated in both ways has the blissful absorptions as a refuge, a recourse, and lives on in joy able to attain them at will.

 

The absorptions are not exclusive to Buddhist meditation. But liberating insights developed based on them (the Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness founded on a base of "right concentration," defined by the Buddha as the first four absorptions). The absorptions, as exalted as they may be, are ultimately unsatisfactory. They are only a temporary liberation. They fall away. Nirvana -- which is beyond all worlds, planes, and states -- is the only permanent liberation.

  

Group meditation (whatthebleep.com)

Absorptions are very purifying and can lead to rebirth in extraordinary "heavens" (deva lokas), which are fine-material and immaterial planes of existence beyond the sensual sphere planes. All of these worlds with extraordinary lifespans are impermanent. Even in this life, one loses the object and cannot get it back, or the Five Hindrances reassert themselves with more power than before. Nirvana is safety. The usefulness of right concentration is using it along with right mindfulness -- bare awareness and contemplation of particular things outlined in the discourse on the Four Foundation of Mindfulness.

   

If one is not liberated temporarily and permanently, one would fall into the same problem as the early meditation teachers Siddhartha sought out as guides. Yogi Alara Kalama and Yogi Uddaka Ramaputta guided Siddhartha to two immaterial planes -- the sphere of nothingness and the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception -- calling these final liberation from samsara (rebirth and suffering).

  

Siddhartha could see that there was something more, something beyond rebirth. He could see that these planes, however exalted, did not represent nirvana (the "complete end of suffering").

• Access and Fixed Concentration (Ven. Sujivo)

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