This is a copy of a talk I gave on November 9, 2023 at the Blooming Heart Sangha
A Key to Liberation: The State of Jhana joy – take three
November 9, 2023
I would like to begin with breathing.
- I invite you to experience what it feels like to breathe and become aware of your breath.
- Pause to be aware of your breath…….
- Experience the breath as known
- Feel the joy of knowing your breathing.
- Remember how you have experienced other moments of joy, pleasure and delight.
This is what happened to the Buddha
- Remember how the young Siddhartha ( who had not yet become the Buddha ) was resting in the shade of a rose apple tree
- Sitting there under the tree he spontaneously entered a state of deep concentration, satisfaction and ease.
- He would later remember that pleasant experience.
- He decided he would cultivate those naturally occurring states as the means for awakening.
- He went on to teach his followers how to harness the power of a unified, happy mind.
I want to talk about my practice of cultivating and expanding those moments of joy. Based on breath, the breath as known.
- It is the practice of the 5 jhana factors, the precursors and precondition for the deep state of absorption: Jhana
- The 5 Jhana factors are the path of deep concentration leading to: Jhana, samadhi.
- I first talked about this several years ago, and said I had a 6 month plan to explore the 5 jhana factors.
- I’m still exploring. I’m still on the path, I’ve experienced lot, but still practicing. I constantly see and experience the path differently. While this is my current experience, the core approach is the same.
Summary: The 5 Jhana factors are steps along the path to cultivating deep concentration. = samadhi
- A path of deepening joy.
- I’ve seen Thay refer to Jhana, but I haven’t seen him discuss the 5 steps I’m talking about.
- Thay does talk about the factors and about the state of absorption.
- I have relied on authors like Shaila Catherine and Leigh Brasington for clearly identifying the path as the 5 steps
The first two steps are the hardest. You already know this.
First Step: Connecting
- I direct my attention to a chosen object: the breath as know
- Not the breath itself, but the breath as known.
- Connecting begins with the intention to know and become aware.
- Connecting relies first on relaxed, natural awareness of the physicality of the breath.
- Then moves to focus on the breath as known. Focus on the occurrence of breath.
- Equivalent: the inviting of the bell.
Second Step: Sustaining
- Sustained attention on the chosen object: sustained attention on the breath as known
- Starts getting harder
- This sustaining of attention allows concentration to deepen
- Equivalent: the reverberating bell, the steading hands of a potter.
- May often have go return to the first step, Connecting
- Good news: Next step is easy: do nothing
Third Step: Rapturous interest
- Surrender to entrance of inner bliss; allow it to happen naturally.
- Natural feeling of lightness and pleasure when the first two steps occur.
- A sign that the first two steps have been taken, success.
- I said it is easy, BUT: the first time it happened to me it scared me so much I was in my Doctor’s office the next day talking about the possibility of a stroke.
- I’ve decided that this surrender to rapture is a developed skill; I now do it multiple times a day, without fear. It becomes easy with practice.
- Not some kind of random rapture; it is rapture out of attention to a specific object (for me: breath as known or some other tactile experience as known: eg. Momentary touching the chair fabric, the top of the desk, the hand of someone next to me, a deep hug)
Fourth Step: Joy
- Enduring deep ease, pervasive contentment
- Mind is bright and undisturbed
- Sustain rapturous, but at lower level; not as intense as the third step
- Equivalent: settling into a warm bath.
- No urgency to finish…..nice
Fifth Step: One-pointedness
- A feeling of intimacy that rivets attention
- Sets the stage for absorption
- Can be experienced by focusing on the breath as known, by focusing on the hardness of the chair, by focusing on the touch of someone near you.
- 5th step has a feeling of certainty; stability of concentration.
- I think: A summary of all 5 steps in one.
These five are the 5 Jhana Factors
- Set the stage, are prerequisites for Jhana absorption……absorption that can support insight or action, but it is not the same as insight or action.
- Admission: I still linger on these 5 factors; They are where I am; still working on them, getting familiar with them.
- Jhana absorption is mostly out of my reach, though I sometimes think I see it in a distant mist.
- My experience of absorption is brief; by definition, now quite jhana
- I talked about the five as steps, and some authors, like Shaila, present them that way: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5
- In true Thay fashion: I think if you really experience any one of them, you experience them all. All at once. And that is very nice.
- Like 5-sided dice.
Wrap up:
The 5 Jhana factors are a way of deep concentration; also a way of deep joy.
- They are for me a key to liberation.
- Can move me in a couple of directions: Concentration / no content ( samadhi) or insight / content (vipassana)
- 5 Jhana factors rely on awareness of the breath: the breath as know
- In my practice, I add many other tactile experiences that I become aware of as known.
- However, for most, the breath is pivotal, the breath is foundational; the breath teaches what it is like to experience breath as known
This is how I use the breath; What about you?
- How do you use your breath?
- How does the breath fit into your practice.
- Experience?