This Sunday, Don again took us on an excursion into the jhanas, those states of deeper concentration that were touchstones for the Buddha and his disciples.
These progressive levels of focus can be accessed in well-defined progressive stages, and a high level of jhana is the subject of the dharma talk by Leigh Brasington which anchored our practice and discussion this week. You can listen to the talk here:
https://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/76538/
Most of this talk will focus on the fourth jhana. This fits well after the last presentation on jhanas 1-3. The fourth jhana leaves behind the bliss/emptiness of the third jhana and replaces it with emptiness and equanimity. In the fourth jhana we are bright, alert and complete. We don’t need or want anything.
What if we meditate and jhana never come? There is still some benefit to calming down and letting our internal chatter coast to a stop.
What if one of the jhana arrives and we don’t know what do or what it all means? What if the bright white (or amber) light of nimitta happens and we get excited and “fumble-the-ball-at-the-ten-yard-line.”
The four jhanas only work for a while on the cushion. How do they relate to everyday life?
Historians debate about what happened 100 years ago. How do we know what people in a vastly different culture did 2600 years ago? Mr. Brasington mentions that the Vissuddhamaga and the Vimuttamagga describe jhana differently. Mahayana and Vajrayana practitioners, typically, don’t talk about jhana at all. What’s going on here?
There is no need to bring up jhanas 5,6,7,8 at this time. It is the fourth jhana, that counts, right now.
Is jhana practice beneficial to everyone? Can we slide into a non-productive state? We are somewhat limited by our biology. Only a finite number of mental states are possible. Various Buddhist sects seem to have an infinity of views on what this all means.
