Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

something enjoyable and steady, can be helpful for this. It has the five primary factors of applied and sustained effort or attention, rapture, happiness and concentration. Thus, it is great fun, feels good, but takes consistent effort to sustain. The attention is focused narrowly, as though one were looking at a small area of this page. This state can be quite a relief from the pain and discomfort of sitting meditation and can temporarily quiet the mind somewhat. As with all the concentration states, it is generally quite easy to concentrate on something that is very enjoyable. Thus, one’s concentration skills may improve rapidly and easily after attaining the first jhana and tend to basically flounder until one has attained the first jhana. Thus, attaining the first jhana is really, really important.

People tend to really like this state, and may cling to it for the rest of the retreat if on retreat, or cultivate it again and again in their sitting practice at home. It is a valuable attainment, as it serves as the minimum foundation for both insight and concentration practices. From the first jhana there are basically three things a meditator can do. They can either get stuck there (I know someone who spent some twenty years cultivating the first jhana in their daily practice and thinking this was insight practice), they can progress to the second jhana, or they can

investigate the first jhana and thus begin the progress of insight.

By “investigate” the state, I mean that they can direct their attention to breaking the illusion of the solidity of that state into its component individual sensations so that one can understand their true nature, i.e.

the Three Characteristics, as is done in insight practice with all objects.

Special attention must be paid to trying to experience the precise arising and passing of every individual sensation that makes up the state, particularly the primary beneficial factors of the state listed above.

While it is not actually possible to perceive the arising and passing of every single sensation or to even be mindful of every sensation, it is definitely possible to be clear about enough of them to get enlightened, and that is what matters. It is somewhat common for people to do this 140

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half-heartedly and not pay particular attention to the myriad sensations that make up rapture and happiness, as they secretly wish them to be permanent, satisfy and be self or the property of self. Stagnation is basically guaranteed in insight practice if you cling to pleasant sensations in this way, or anything else for that matter. Put another way, if you fail to see the impermanence of objects, you will have artificially solidified them (“clung to” them) and will not gain insight from them.

The near enemy of the first samatha jhana is access concentration, and when the applied and sustained effort or attention flag somewhat, access concentration sets in. As the texts rightly say, the applied and sustained effort, i.e. the fact that you have to make effort to get into and stay in this state, are also somewhat annoying. This becomes more and more apparent, and clear awareness of just this simple fact while staying in the jhana causes the mind to eventually bail out of the first jhana and into the second jhana.

THE SECOND JHANA

The second jhana is like the first, i.e. a seemingly solidified mind state. With the dropping of almost all of applied and sustained effort the rapture and happiness factors created by concentration can really predominate. Thus, whereas the first jhana feels like something you need to pay attention to, the second jhana has the quality of showing itself to you. The focus of attention widens out somewhat, sort of like looking straight ahead without focusing the eyes on anything specific.

Whereas mind-generated objects in the first jhana are stable, they will move (e.g. spin, pulse, resonate, etc.) in the second jhana in ways that correlate with the phase of the breath, moving slowly towards the top and bottom of the breath and more quickly in the middle.

The silence of the mind is noticeably increased, and the pleasure of this state may increase greatly as well, particularly if pleasure is the focus of attention. When this state is really cultivated, the intensity of the pleasure of this state can become pretty much as strong you can stand it.

Again, this state is a fine attainment but can be quite captivating. Some may get stuck cultivating this again and again for some period of time ranging from days to years. Again, the meditator also has the option to try to go on to the third jhana or to investigate this state and begin the 141

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progress of insight, paying careful attention to completely deconstructing the state into its moment-to-moment components.

THE THIRD JHANA