Transcription
Today I was planning to talk about the first jhāna, and then tomorrow I was going to talk about playing and working in any jhāna, but also out of any jhāna, or playing and working in and out of any jhāna. And then I decided, actually, I'll combine those two, really, because they kind of interrelate as two themes. So first jhāna as well as playing and working in and out of jhāna in general, as one talk. And then after that, the teachings will get a lot less dense, so there'll be a bit -- well, should be a lot more breathing room in terms of how much material is coming at you. It's slightly complicated by the fact that I have a hospital appointment tomorrow, and I have no idea how long that's going to take. So I hope that it won't be complicated, that I can go there, come back, and finish, if I don't finish today, the second part of the talk. Maybe we'll finish today; maybe it will have to get bumped till the day after tomorrow; maybe I can come tomorrow. So let's see how we do, but just so you know that.
Okey-doke, so first jhāna, and playing and working in and out of any jhāna, really, mostly. First jhāna -- I've read this already. Let's start with the simile:
Just as a skilled bathman or his assistant kneading the soap powder [so working the soap powder], which he has sprinkled with water, forms from it, in a metal dish, a soft lump, so that the ball of soap powder becomes one [there's an English word here; I don't even know what it means. I think it means one oily mass], bound with oil, so that nothing escapes. So this practitioner suffuses, drenches, fills and irradiates their body so that no spot remains untouched [and fills and irradiates, suffuses, etc. their body with what?] with this [have to retranslate] pīti and sukha born of detachment.[1]
Detachment from what? Detachment from the hindrances. That's what 'detachment' means in this case. It's funny: if you look at older translations, there are all kinds of different translations of pīti and sukha. So I'm going to spend a little time on some Pali words today, but ...
With this pīti and sukha born of detachment [detachment from the hindrances, or sometimes the seclusion from the hindrances, withdrawal from the hindrances], she so suffuses, drenches, fills, and irradiates her body that there is no spot in her entire body that is untouched by this delight [oh, here we go], by this pīti and sukha born of detachment.
So the soap simile is really a simile for what we do with the pīti and sukha: suffuse, saturate, steep, drench, irradiate, pervade, permeate -- all these words. We do that with the pīti and sukha. And sukha translates best, I think, as, let's say, 'happiness,' I would say. In the first jhāna, the pīti is the primary quality (I'm going to come back to this). The sukha is there, and one is definitely not unhappy. One is conscious that one is happy, but actually, even the consciousness that one is happy -- very, very happy -- might be a little bit in the background. One's more kind of taken by, captivated by, and should be concentrating on the pīti. The pīti is what is foremost in consciousness.
So the Buddha has these similes. And other times, for each jhāna, he describes them in terms of their factors -- what are called 'jhāna factors': jhāna-aṅga in Pali.[2] And pīti and sukha (two Pali words) -- they're two of the five factors of the first jhāna. There are five factors in the first jhāna. Pīti and sukha are two of them.
Another one is ekaggatā, and actually it's a factor of every jhāna, ekaggatā in Pali. This usually gets translated as 'one-pointedness.' I've already touched on this. It cannot, it absolutely cannot, there's no way that it can mean putting the mind in a small spatial point. Now, you might do that; in fact, you probably will do that at times in a jhāna, if you're playing with this probing, receiving -- open, directed shifting of the modes of attention. But it cannot mean one-pointedness in a spatial sense, because it's a factor of, as I said, the fifth jhāna, which is infinite space. You realize there's a complete contradiction, right? If you take it as a spatial point, it doesn't make sense, right?
So what does it mean? Eka, 'one'; in the Sanskrit, āgra; and -tā is just a '-ness' on the end. I can understand why it's 'one-pointedness.' It's something like a mountain peak or a prominence. And of course, some mountains are quite pointy like that. But the best translation is something like, I think, 'one thing is prominent': *eka-*prominent-ness. One thing is prominent. What is that one thing that becomes prominent? People argue about this. Is it the original meditation object? Is it the breath? Is it the body that becomes prominent, the sense of the body? Or is it the pīti? I would say that in jhāna, what happens is they all get mixed together. As I said, I'm breathing pīti, if you're still with the breath, if the breath is still there. Or the body has become pīti. Or it's just the pīti is what's prominent. So I would say the pīti is what's prominent. In a way, it's the most significant factor of the first jhāna. Let's say that. So pīti is the thing that's most prominent to consciousness. It's not that other things, other aspects, other dimensions, or other aspects of the jhāna won't come into consciousness. They will. But the most prominent thing, and what should be the most prominent thing, is the pīti.
Okay, so pīti and sukha, two factors; ekaggatā, a third factor -- I'm not saying these in the order they're usually presented. Then there are two more factors, which in Pali [are] vitakka and vicāra. Now most of you, if you've heard these terms before, any translation you will hear, you will have heard translations: 'initial and sustained application.' Who's heard that before? Really, really common. It's certainly what I was taught for many years. One of my original meditation teachers -- I was originally taught by a group of teachers -- one of them was a professor of Pali, is a professor of Pali. So not a professor of Buddhism, not even a professor of Theravādan Buddhism, but a professor of Pali. That's his thing. And he said that's not what it meant at the time of the Buddha. At that time, that's not how those words were used. Vitakka and vicāra just meant something like 'thinking.' In English, we have a kind of double verb -- you always say this and this.
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: [laughs] No, but I mean as a phrase. It doesn't matter. So it was a stock phrase in Pali, and it just meant 'thinking,' originally. About 500 years after the Buddha in Sri Lanka, a guy, a monk called Buddhaghosa wrote a book called the Visuddhimagga, which translates as The Path of Purification.[3] In some Theravādan countries, it's regarded as a Bible. It's really revered, this book, and in some other countries much, much less so. The story goes that he -- actually, it was a compilation. What he did was interview lots of meditation masters, take what they had (I heard this, obviously, secondhand; I wasn't there), take what they gave him, threw out what he didn't like (although he himself was not much of a meditator), burnt what he threw out, and kept the rest. I don't know if that's true, but I've heard that. Anyway -- I think, if the history's right -- he translates in Abhidhamma (which is a kind of technical psychological bureaucracy of Theravādan Buddhism), also translates it as 'initial and sustained application.'
But at the time of the Buddha, that's not how those words were used. They're okay translations, actually, to a certain extent. At a certain point in your practice, if you keep those translations, it should occur to you, "This doesn't really make sense," once you get into the other jhānas. But it's okay. At a certain point, they stop kind of making much sense, but to a certain extent, it's really okay. So 'initial application' means bringing my mind to whatever it is, the breath. I bring the mind: initial application. 'Sustained application' means, in this sense, I stay there, and I probe it, and I become intimate with it. That's usually the explanation that's given on vipassanā retreats, and on, I guess, quite a lot of jhāna retreats.
One of my main teachers, Ajaan Geoff, translates them as 'directed thought' and 'evaluative thought' -- very different translation. And what he means, really, is 'attending to' whatever the object is, and 'thinking about' it. So this is in the first jhāna: 'thinking' about the breath, 'thinking' about the energy body, 'thinking' about the well-being or the pleasure. "What would help right now? What would be helpful? How should I shift my emphasis? How should I view the breath? What way of looking should I play with?" And relates the word vicāra (the second of those terms) to vicaya. Some of you know the Pali -- dhammavicaya is the second factor of the seven factors of awakening: 'investigation.' There's a kind of investigative thinking about that's going on in the first jhāna -- at least, I would say, sometimes.
So for these two terms, we've got the possibility of the most popular translation and interpretation: 'initial and sustained application.' The second one is just 'thinking.' And a third one is 'directed and evaluative thinking,' which really means this kind of creative [thinking], like, "What's helping right now? How should I play with this?" Which shall we choose? What are we going to do here?
Do you want to know what I think? [laughter]
I think, "Forget about it!" Forget about those terms anyway. Just throw them out. It doesn't make any [difference]. Of course you're going to be [using] initial and sustained application. Of course you are. Just don't worry about it. If you're thinking about the meditation, great. You know, we've talked about that. If you're working with pīti, great. It's fine. I think it's actually not that helpful. There's all this argument and tussle about it, and again, it's like, what's actually important here? We could say, at times, the first jhāna can include thinking about how the meditation is going, what's helpful, etc. But 'thinking' -- it's not the kind of thinking: "I suck at this." [laughter] "I bet everyone else in here is in the eighth jhāna. I just should go home." Not that kind of thinking, okay? If there's thinking, it's about what's happening. It's a very subtle kind of responsive, intelligent, connected thinking about the practice -- maybe like, people ask me, "As a jazz musician, do you think when you play? You're improvising. Do you think, or is it ...?" It's like, "Well, yeah, but it's a different kind of thought." I'm not sort of pondering long sentences. Or a painter, really in the flow with their art -- are they thinking or not thinking? Well, there may well be a certain thought, absolutely, in part of the flow. We'll come to this later when we talk about deeper jhānas, because one question here is: what is a thought, anyway? We'll come back to that.
So for what it's worth, my two cents on this is: forget about it! Just get into it. Just get into it, and this whole "What does that mean?" will take care of itself. Just get into -- in this case, get into the pīti. Enjoy it, get intimate with as much as you can, the fullness of connection with it, spreading it, really opening to it, enjoying it, seeing how much you can enjoy it -- if you just do that, don't worry about: "Is there thinking?" Just get into it more, and it becomes a non-question, what it really is.
[15:10] And then, even in the second jhāna, as you move to the second jhāna, one of the factors of the second jhāna is the dropping away of thinking. So it's a kind of a factor of an absence, if you like. But if I'm checking -- "Am I thinking? Have there been any thoughts yet?" -- or if I'm measuring how long I've not been thinking, or whether there's been thinking, or if I'm trying not to think, this, I would say, is not such intelligent practice, for a number of reasons, one of which [is] I'm putting my emphasis on the least significant factor, the least helpful factor of the second jhāna. I'm going to come back to this, obviously, when we talk about the second jhāna.
[16:00] So I think I've said already, I think, or it seems from my experience teaching, that if you can get to the first jhāna, I used to think, then actually, all the jhānas are available to you, with a lot of work. If you can get to the jhāna, you can master (in the sense that I mean it) all jhānas. It will take a long time, and a lot of work, and a lot of dedication, but it's possible if that's the sort of thing that you want. I actually would like to revise that (and I mentioned this), and actually say, if pīti can arise, you can do all that. If pīti can arise, there's no reason you can't attain the first jhāna, and then have all the jhānas. So actually, the arising of pīti should give you a lot of confidence. It's saying, "The road is clear. It's open. All you have to do is walk. Yeah, it might be hard at times. It's a long way. You're going to need a lot of ingenuity. You're going to need a lot of dedication. It's open. There's nothing in the way for you. That road is open."
Who's heard another Pali word, nimitta? Quite a lot, okay. So do you understand by nimitta -- in the context of jhāna practice -- something like the appearance of a luminous visual form with some detail in it that you can then concentrate on that will take you into jhāna? Yes? Okay, again, the Buddha never used that word. He uses the word nimitta, but never, never ever in that way. Again, it comes from the Visuddhimagga, etc. [17:04] In English it's often translated as 'counterpart sign,' or it is in the old translations. I'm not even sure how it's translated now. In the Pali Canon, meaning in the words of the Buddha, he does use that word [nimitta], but more he uses it as 'object of perception.' Any object of perception in meditation is a nimitta. Sometimes I think he uses it as, in a way, it would translate as something like 'theme,' a theme of meditation, I think. In the Mahāyāna teachings (same word in Sanskrit, nimitta), it has the additional meaning of 'ground' or 'base,' and that's connected with emptiness teachings and teachings about groundlessness, etc. So it had quite a different spin then in Mahāyāna teachings. We can use that word. I don't mind using it, and it's fine; I don't mind if you want to use it, but I would like to use it in a slightly different way as 'sign.' That's usually the translation. Nimitta means 'sign.'
And what is it? It's a sign that the samādhi is deepening, any sign that the samādhi is deepening. So the arising of pīti is a sign that the samādhi is deepening. The arising of sukha, of happiness, is a sign that samādhi is deepening. The arising of a kind of almost otherworldly, pristine, pure, luminous stillness is also a sign. The arising of the perception of space, as a very clear perception, is a sign, at different levels, that the samādhi is deepening.
Some people get also, for instance, they're meditating, and then at some point, a white, golden light is very common, like white, golden, suffused light, or a kind of cloud of light in the mind. Sometimes a person's not sure; they're meditating, and they're like, "Did the sun just come out?", because everything's just got very bright. So this, too, that white kind of light, is also a sign that the samādhi is deepening.
But the primary nimitta -- again, the most important thing to put the attention on, and the most important thing around which the whole practice converges -- in the first jhāna, the primary nimitta is the pīti, if you want to use that word. In the second jhāna, the primary factor is the sukha, the happiness. We'll come back to that.
So in the first jhāna, pīti has arisen, through one way or another, however it has arisen. In order, then, to consolidate it and move into an absorption in it, which is the first jhāna, what needs to be there, and what do we need to do? These are some of the things I want to address: what kind of work? What kind of play? How strong does the pīti have to be? I think I've touched on this already. There's a huge range in terms of the intensity of the pīti that's possible -- massive range. But it does need to be strong enough. It does need to be strong enough that it's definitely pleasurable before I can start working with it, and trying to take that pīti and kind of mould it, shape it, allow it to open, and take me into the first jhāna. It needs to be strong enough -- which doesn't necessarily mean, you know, blow your head off. It also needs to sustain long enough. (I think I said this yesterday; did I say that? Yes.) So it needs to be around for, let's say, two or three minutes at least, without going away. Two or three minutes, strong enough, it's definitely pleasant -- then it's ready. Then I can decide to take that as my primary object and really get into it, and work and play, and there's the possibility that that moves into the first jhāna.
I think I also mentioned this -- it's good to review it though. In the first four jhānas (they're called rūpa-jhānas, which translates sometimes as 'form jhānas'; rūpa has a few different meanings, but let's say 'form'), what's happening as we go through one, two, three, four is the perception of the body becomes more and more subtle, so that the happiness of the second jhāna -- it might be a super-intense happiness. It might be a happiness that I've never experienced so much joy in my life. But it's still, as an object, it's more refined than the pīti. Pīti is, relatively speaking, gross. It's a coarse object, like a coarse cloth, compared to a really fine cloth. So that's not the same thing as intensity. Do you get the difference? In the third jhāna, the particular kind of peacefulness that arises in the third jhāna is really very, very subtle, and that's part of its beauty. And it's more subtle than the happiness of the second jhāna.
And as you're pervading, saturating, suffusing, one way of saying what's happening is, these primary factors, primary nimittas -- the pīti, the sukha, the ... let's call it 'peacefulness,' for now, of the third jhāna, the stillness of the fourth jhāna -- the body becomes them. They become the body. What's my body now? I don't have a sense of organs and solidity. So the usual solidity that we have of the body -- hard bones and all that, and organs, etc. -- is more gross than the solidity, the refinement of the pīti, which is more gross than the sense of solidity or refinement (if we can even call it 'solidity' at that point) of the happiness. Do you get the sense? There's a spectrum here of increasing refinement or subtlety of the perception of the body. Because I've drenched, suffused, saturated, permeated, my body has become pīti. My body, breath, all that has become happiness. And there's a spectrum there of more refinement. [23:34] When you get to the fifth jhāna, any sense of form, of body, has disappeared, and it's just space. In a way, that's ultra-refined, right? It's like nothing.
Pīti is important, actually, in many ways. One of the things I want to emphasize is it's important to keep it around, and keep our access to it, and keep it as something that we consider lovely and consider as a resource, even when I'm working and my playground has become the seventh or eighth jhāna or whatever. Sometimes what happens is we go into those formless jhānas, when that's what you're working on, and then you want to come back, and I want to skip back from the eighth to the third, or something like that, or the fourth. And the body vibration of stillness that's characteristic of the fourth, or peacefulness that's characteristic of the third -- I can't find it. The whole perception has become so ultra-refined from the deeper formless jhānas that I can't find what I need to find to enter the fourth or third jhāna, because I need to find that particular vibration, that particular bandwidth of refinement that is characteristic and prominent of the fourth or third jhāna. What can really help is, actually, to just go all the way back to the pīti, the first one, and get that going a bit, and then the third or fourth will be more accessible.
So again, what I want to say today is not just about the first jhāna. It's about working and playing in general. And a lot of what I say will be relevant to whatever stage one is at, will be relevant in a year's time, etc. Sometimes it's possible that the pīti in particular is an acquired taste. We're not actually sure how keen we are on it at first. That's definitely possible. It's actually possible with any jhāna. It can be we just fall in love with it right away, and feel its loveliness, feel it as a resource, super-excited about it. Or it might be that it's an acquired taste. So this could potentially be for any jhāna.
[25:54] What's an interesting thing that happens, I'd say with the majority of people, is that when they start working on the third jhāna -- which is this very peaceful, exquisite sort of serenity; that's one of the main characteristics of it -- then when you go back to the first jhāna and the pīti and all that, it feels so coarse, and one becomes a bit of a snob. So one [thinks], "I don't want anything to do with that," because relatively speaking, it's actually quite gross, relative to the third jhāna. Still, I would say, in the context of the whole of jhāna practice, we want to keep it. Again, I might have to re-find my enjoyment of it. I might have to re-feel it as enjoyable and pleasurable. It's an interesting thing.
Sometimes (and this is actually quite common), if a person, if a practitioner has done a lot of insight meditation practice, the order in which they experience the jhānas is not one, two, three, four, etc. Mostly, the way insight meditation practice is taught is, you know, be mindful, and things come up, watch them, let them go, watch them, let them go, watch them, let them go. In that being aware, being mindful, and letting go, what am I cultivating there? I'm cultivating a kind of equanimity. And so what happens with many, many insight meditation [practitioners] -- years of practice, retreats, etc. -- one has actually kind of developed a groove in the citta towards equanimity. And maybe not a jhānic state of equanimity, but maybe some kind of ... I need to explain something later on about different kinds of equanimity. We'll get to that at another point. But basically, equanimity is a common hanging-out place for the mind that's done a lot of insight meditation.
And then what happens? One goes on a jhāna retreat. One wants to learn the jhānas. But what might happen is it just goes straight to -- if not the fourth jhāna, something akin to that, or sort of a quasi-formless state, maybe where the senses are open, because there are states that are like infinite space or infinite consciousness, but they're actually not those jhānas. The senses are still kind of -- I'll explain the difference later. But there's something akin to the four, five, six, for example. And it's actually quite hard for that person to get pīti, because again, pīti is too agitated, and the mind has this groove to equanimity. So they find themselves in some state that's maybe not the fourth jhāna or whatever, but maybe near enough that, actually, maybe -- and this is the sort of thing I usually work out in an interview with a person -- maybe it's good if we start with the fourth jhāna. We take that stillness that you've got, and we really hone it, and get it very consolidated, very bright, very powerful. And then, master that, and then go backwards, so the order of mastery doesn't happen: one, two, three, four. I feel like I've said that very clumsily, but does that make sense? Yeah?
So a lot of you have done a lot of insight practice as well. It's interesting. It's just something to be aware of. There can be this real almost like habit towards equanimity, and sometimes that habit can be both entrenched enough, but also powerful enough, in other words, that you keep finding yourself in a territory that's closer to the fourth. Sometimes a person skips the second jhāna, which is characterized by a lot of happiness, and there may be all kinds of psychological reasons for that. Or the pīti -- I'm just a bit resistant to that. We touched on this yesterday. In terms of the arūpa-jhānas, the formless jhānas -- again, doesn't necessarily go five, six, seven, eight. For me, if I remember back, I think the sixth one was easier than the fifth, and I kind of was trying to learn them both at the same time. But certain minds, dependent on their inclinations and experience and trainings, will find different of the formless jhānas also easier than others. I don't think anyone will find the eighth jhāna easier than the others, but maybe it's okay to follow the order in which things open up for you.
But I retain my vision of, "Where are we going with this?" It's like, you know, imagine a sort of square, a check-off square for mastery of each of the eight jhānas: can I really hang out and sustain? Can I marinate? Can I get it at will? Can I jump around from it? And you go, "Okay, eventually, what I want is to look at that square for each of the eight jhānas and all of those mastery skills, and just have them all ticked." The order in which that ticking happens maybe doesn't matter so much. So it kind of depends. Now, I haven't, so far, heard that from anyone on the retreat, but I encounter it quite commonly as a teacher. The past tendency and experience in meditation, grooves in meditation, actually very much affect what opens up, when, and in what order.
But we do want this differentiation. We really, really -- it's so, so important. This is this, and that's that. This is the second jhāna, and that's the third jhāna. This is the first jhāna, and that's the second. This is pīti, and that's sukha -- whatever it is. It's part of the cultivation, the development of sensitivity. Without that differentiation, as I said, something will kind of grind to a soupy, squidgy halt at some point. It will be nice, but the possibility of really deepening insight will be limited.
So each jhāna to the next jhāna is kind of like a quantum leap. It's kind of like, "I'm in a different realm now." And mostly that's the experience. You know what 'quantum leap' means? It means there's nothing in between. Here's something, and here's something, and it's not that there's anything in between. I'm just here, and then suddenly I'm here. Yeah? Quantum leap. Mostly that's the experience. They're discrete, quantumly differentiated states. But sometimes it will seem to you as much more of a spectrum. Like, "No, it actually is a continuum." Sometimes it will be experienced that way. And we can also view it that way. But I would say it's really important to have this discrete sense of quantum leaps between states.
Okay. One really large point (which I mentioned, I think, in one of the first two talks): rather than "Am I in or out of a jhāna?", can I just be thinking about jhāna practice?[4] It's quite a different shift. So that means, for instance, the hindrances are part of jhāna practice. The place when I'm not sure whether I'm in or out -- it doesn't really matter. The place where I said those terriers, where sort of I can just hear them yapping. Maybe they do feel distant; they're on the edge of the consciousness. It's still jhāna practice, okay? And if I have that view, it's going to be much, much more fruitful, much more intelligent.
So I have this view of a big picture of jhāna practice, which include a huge range of territory of experience -- not just these sharply defined (so-called) eight jhānas, but the whole territory. The grey areas, the "I'm clearly in a hell realm now," the whatever -- even the way I walk around outside (which I'll come to) in between formal sittings -- it's jhāna practice, because I'm walking around outside in a different way than I would if I was doing a Mahāsi retreat, a Goenka retreat, if I was just hanging out, if I was on my way to work. So this is huge, actually, this view. What that means is there's work (as I said when I introduced the talk today) or play, dependent on your favourite word, in and out -- on and off the cushion, but also in and out of a jhāna.
The first time you enter what's a new jhāna for you -- let's say, the first time you hit the first jhāna or the second jhāna or whatever -- what's quite common is that it seems completely effortless, the first maybe few times in that new realm. You've made that quantum jump, and it seems completely effortless. The idea of working there, or doing something, or playing with something, seems just a million miles away. It certainly won't even occur to you, if you haven't been told about it. If you're just skipping through jhānas really fast, you won't notice this. You'll miss 99 per cent of what's valuable about jhānas. You're just skipping right through, and it's like, like I said, skipping -- "I've seen the Taj Mahal. I went there, and I pointed my phone at it while I was looking at something else." If you hang out, if you really marinate, if you really start working, and playing, and bringing all your sensitivity and intelligence and awareness and openness, and getting really intimate, and getting to know them, after a few times at a new level that you've broken to, you start to realize, "Oh, there is work to do here. Or there is play to do. There's lots to do." But it's very, very subtle. We're talking about very subtle work, play, mostly -- yeah, definitely, mostly. So if you still feel it's a completely effortless state where you can't do anything, it's actually that you're in some kind of unconsciousness, and it's not going to be very helpful, and it's not going to deepen, it's not going to be very helpful in your life, etc.
So then the work begins. "Okay, I've had my little holiday at this new level," and then the work and the play begins. And I get used to this -- what is it for the mind to really work in the most delicate ways, to really play in the most delicate ways, to learn about this jhāna, to consolidate it, to deepen it, etc., to learn about its different spaces, levels, textures, aspects?
It can also be the case, and it commonly is the case that when we reach, when consciousness reaches a new level, when the citta reaches a new level, it's a bit like a dam bursting. Again, the first experience of the first jhāna or the second jhāna, it's as if a dam has just broken apart, and the water is just gushing through. It can be very, very intense. And then, again, as I get used to that jhāna, it seems to get less intense, the experience, or it often can.
So, what 'work'? What 'play'? What's involved there? The principle of moving between these modes of attention -- the probing, the receiving, the wider, the narrower, etc. -- that's part of the work. Again, it's quite subtle, but it's part of the work. There's something active in a jhāna. There are other modes of attention that are possible: I could wrap the jhānic quality around the body and dissolve it in, or dissolve my body out -- there are many things. Play. Find modes of attention that work. So you know, creative. Even if I say "savour whatever is the primary nimitta, the primary factor, like the pīti in the first jhāna," to really relish it, to really savour it actually involves a kind of active work. If I really want to relish it to the max, I actually have to play with how I'm relating to it.
There's an acronym that some of you who have met over the years with me individually have heard. What do I need? When I'm in a jhāna, I need to know: what do I need to do now? As I said, at first, it's: "Oh, I don't do anything. I'm just there." It's going along. I'm going along on this momentum of the water through the burst dam. I'm not doing anything. I'm just like, "Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!" After a while, you see, "Oh, hold on. There is work to do," etc. What's the work that I have to do? What's important, and what's not important? Because what's important tells me what work I have to do. What's not important -- it's not part of the work that I have to do.
So there's an acronym: SASSIE. I'm not just sitting there. I'm doing something. Don't just sit there -- do something! Isn't that the name of a book? No, it's the other way around. [laughs] Don't just sit there. Do something! Sometimes. Sometimes you can go into non-doing, but again, that's really, in the larger context, just a mode. It's just a mode. So, SASSIE:
(1) First S stands for Suffusion. As the Buddha said, "suffusing, saturating the whole body."[5] So this is one of the things I'm working towards. Once the pīti is there, I'm working towards: make sure, or can I encourage, can I help the whole body space to be completely, homogenously suffused and saturated by the pīti? At some point, it will be suffused and saturated. It's just done. And then that job is done. There's nothing more to do. It's done. What else am I going to do? It's suffused and saturated, right? So it's done. And we've talked about ways of playing with that, and what to do when it doesn't quite work.
(2) The A -- SASSIE, the second one: A for Absorption. So sometimes (I don't know if you've had this experience), it's almost as if the pīti (or whatever it is, the happiness, whatever) can feel almost like 'in front' of you a little bit, as if your citta and body are here somehow, and it's kind of 'in front,' or something like that. We're aiming: can I get more absorbed in it? Can I put myself and put the citta kind of more 'inside' it, so I really feel like I'm 'in' something? Now, to me, I would say, that absorption -- there's no limit to it. There's no limit to it.
I want to say something else about the Suffusion. Can I say that, then come back to the Absorption? Is that okay? Yeah? So when I'm trying to suffuse, I'm not, like, looking, feeling around my body: "Which spaces don't have pīti?" That's almost like turning your attention to the negative a little bit. It's more like, just don't take it away from the pīti, and look, "Oh," obsessed with what's wrong. Just let the pīti spread -- spread it out like you're spreading, you know, jam on toast or whatever, rather than attending to the negative. Remember that subtle inclination towards negativity, towards what's wrong, towards "not quite good enough." So eventually, as I said, when we become more and more familiar with pīti, and more and more familiar with moving in and out of the first jhāna, the pīti will be spread every time. It's just normal. And eventually, when we're more and more familiar with it, with the pīti, as I mentioned yesterday, and I put a lot of emphasis on this, we can start, if we want, sometimes, to see pain, to play with perception so we see pain as pīti. That painful area in the body, I see it as pīti, and it's therefore pleasurable. You can do that all the way through the jhānas. So I could the same painful spot as 'happiness,' or 'stillness,' or 'nothingness,' or whatever. (Again, I don't think the eighth jhāna.)
Now, when I say that, what's the point of that? It's not like, "Oh, that's a pretty handy thing. That can come in useful, if you're uncomfortable on a long bus ride or whatever it is." Yes, it might, but that's not really the point. And it's certainly not the point to try and, "Oh, now I can do that. Then I can live a pain-free life." That's not the point either. The Buddha had plenty of pain. I have plenty of pain. That's not the point. The point is, it's telling me something about the malleability of perception. It's telling me something about the dependence of appearances and experiences on the way of looking. Dependent on the way of looking, there's this experience; dependent on another way of looking, there's a different appearance, a different experience. And when I understand the emptiness of all things -- in other words, that all appearances, all experiences do depend on the way of looking -- when I really understand that, it empowers, or rather, it tells me about, that means that perceptions are malleable, and it empowers my ability to be malleable with perception.
So I think it was yesterday, I said this is the most significant thing. This is the most significant thing in the Dharma. This is the most significant thing. I think I said it's more significant than "Is this a correct jhāna? Am I in or out of that jhāna?" Right? I said that, yeah? It's the most significant thing, but it's not our primary emphasis or intention on this retreat. So as a practice modality, it's secondary. In other words, just play with that a little bit, once you're familiar with pīti and another jhāna factor. It doesn't become, like, the main practice. So philosophically, and in terms of its implications for our life and our understanding and our liberation, it's the most significant thing. In the context of a jhāna retreat, it's a secondary practice. It's just something you can play with now and then.
So back to the absorption thing. Can it be the case that we can be so absorbed that we don't hear sounds? For instance, you don't hear the birds chirp or sing, or whatever it is. The sense doors close. Again, the Pali Canon, the Buddha doesn't describe the first four jhānas that way. The Visuddhimagga does, I think.[6] Sometimes in the Pali Canon the Buddha says that happens in the formless jhānas, in jhānas five to eight.[7] But in other passages, the Buddha doesn't say that. He describes them with the senses still open.[8] Obviously, the Visuddhimagga is an improvement over what the Buddha said, right?
Hold on. Make sure you don't have a notion of heresy. Or do you have a notion of heresy? Because some people approach Dharma as, "Axiomatically, from the beginning, whatever the Buddha said is true and right and the authority." Actually, probably, I don't know what percentage of Buddhists approach Buddhism that way. So how are you doing with that one? Is it possible that someone who lived after the Buddha could improve on the Buddha's teaching? [pause, nervous laughter]
Yogi: Why not?
Rob: I would say exactly the same thing: "Why not?" But I really mean that as a question, an actual question. If you think it's not possible, why? Why is it not possible? How are you thinking about the whole thing that something like that becomes not possible? In every other field of human endeavour, there's the possibility of improving on what went [before]. So Einstein improved on Newton, who improved on Copernicus. At the moment, they're saying, "Well, maybe something's wrong with Einstein's theory. We're going to need to improve on that pretty soon." So that's just an interesting -- I'm not going to go into it. I've talked about it in other situations.
But if we say either you just have, "The Buddha's right," and then it's not a question; how do we decide about, "Do the senses close? Do I hear the birds, or do I not hear the birds?" If you decide the Buddha's right, you hear the birds, okay? If you decide it's possible that someone could improve on the Buddha, then it's a bit more open. If you ask me, did anyone in the history of Buddhism improve on the Buddha, or on certain aspects of the Buddha's teaching? I would say, yeah, I think Nāgārjuna did. I think he took what the Buddha kind of said a little bit but didn't expand on too fully -- if you know the Kaccāyana Sutta and the Middle Way between existence and non-existence.[9] To me, it's all there in the Pali Canon, and Nāgārjuna took it and really expanded it, and worked it, and took its implications. And to me, really, there's an improvement. I'm not thrusting this on anyone, but just, if you ask me.
How are we going to decide about this one? The Visuddhimagga saying your senses close, you can't hear the birds -- is that an improvement or not an improvement? I mean, certainly we're talking about a 'better' absorption, right? More intense absorption, because you can't hear anything -- must be better, right? It's more. More is better. [laughter] Sorry.
Again, I'd like us to use our intelligence. If we're going to say it's better, why is it better? Why is it better that more absorption is better? And that will connect, again, back to what I was talking about at the beginning: how am I thinking? How am I conceiving of the whole jhānas? How am I conceiving of awakening? And how am I conceiving of the jhānas and their place [in relation] to awakening? So why is that more absorption would be better? You have to kind of explain the whole, "What are we doing? Where are we going? What are we doing with jhānas?"
And you can -- there are conceptions that, again, conceive of jhānas as like, "Yeah, must be like, if I really get this laser-beam attention, then that's better, because insight arises from a laser-beam attention that can dissect momentary reality into the super-fast momentary passing and arising of the aggregates. And that's ultimate reality, and I've seen that through my laser-beam attention," if I think that's the ultimate insight. I've been through all this. I'm not going to repeat it.
But is more better? What is the fruit of that 'more absorption'? And again, you can turn things around. Hang out with people who have that degree of absorption, or who say they have, or whatever. Hang out with them. Learn about how they are, how their life is, how their insight is. Talk to them about deep insight things. Does it bear fruit? Or what fruit does it bear?
So absorption -- I would say it's infinite. However absorbed we are, again, the question here is: what work, what am I trying to do in practice, in this moment, in this jhāna, or with this pīti, what am I trying? I'm trying to get more absorbed. But I can never reach the end of that. Someone says, "Oh, I didn't hear the birds." Another person says, "Oh, well, someone was sawing off my neck with a chainsaw, and I didn't feel anything!" It's like, "Okay, that person's better than that ..." It doesn't matter! What's the fruit? But basically, in terms of work and play, it gives us a direction. And however absorbed I am, I can be more. But I don't need to worry so much about it. It's just a little bit more. It's not like, "Do I have it? Do I not have it? Is it a jhāna because I can still hear the birds?" It's not that question. It's just, it gives you a direction that's open-ended. And that, in a way, takes the pressure off. And it avoids this whole question of "Do I have it? Do I not have it?"
So the work with that one, when you're suffused in the first S, it's just done. I've done it. Okay. I don't have to bother about it. With this one, it's just a constant part of the creative working and playing. Is it possible to get more inside it? Is it possible to get really, really into it? And it's open. It's a direction that invites subtle work and play, but it's not something I'm going to fret about. One day might be better than the other -- it doesn't matter.
(3) Okay. S, A, two S's in the middle of SASSIE: Sustaining. Sustaining the pīti in the case of the first jhāna, or whatever is the primary nimitta of whatever jhāna you're working in, and (4) sustaining the attention on that. These two, as well, I would say they're infinite, and they're infinite in their possibilities. So however much we sustain, we can always increase the sustaining. And if you look closely enough, and I don't want you to do this at the moment, you can see that even when it's so sustained, the attention is so, so sustained, just have to look at it in a certain way, and see that there are micro-nanoseconds where it wasn't. But don't do that, and I'll explain why at the end. It's a direction I'm working towards: "Okay, this is right now what I need to work on: really sustaining, really keeping the mind on this subtle object, on this refined object." Or if it feels like there are gaps in the pīti or the happiness or whatever, if I look at it closely enough, I will see gaps. So it's something to bring a little more discernment, intelligence to. It's just, however sustained those things are, they can be more sustained. So I'm working. They're a direction of work, a direction of play, as opposed to an achievement thing and a definition thing -- I define, "It was, it wasn't a jhāna, because it was all going great, and then I heard one bird chirp. So at that second there, I was out of the jhāna, and then the next second I was back in." It's not that helpful to think that way. Just work on more sustaining.
(5) S, A, S, S, I. The I is for Intensity. So in this case, if we're talking about the first jhāna, it's the intensity of pīti. And I would say that actually doesn't matter. So again, the very common tendency will be like, "Well, it must be better if it's more intense, right?" No! It actually doesn't matter. It has to be strong enough that it's pleasant, and that's it. The intensity will vary over time, you will notice. You will also notice, if you play with certain things, sometimes there are things you can do that build the intensity. Over time, with the first jhāna -- like, I mean a lot of time in and out of first jhāna, a lot of marinating, a lot of experience and skill developing with it -- the intensity will actually get less intense. It's like that mountain river that I was talking about. That's the direction of maturation, not more and more intensity. So there's a certain way that the intensity of the first jhāna (A) doesn't matter, and (B) will anyway, in its own time, get less intense.
(6) S, A, S, S, I, E is for ... [dramatic pause] Enjoy! Which sometimes I find myself having to say to people, it's almost like you want to meditate with a flashing neon sign that says: "ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY." Sometimes, it's almost like, I say, you know, it may be that if you just really seek to maximize enjoyment in the moment, over and over, with whatever ingenuity and creativity and play you want, that that will basically take you where you want to go, and whatever needs to happen will happen, just from the intention to maximize enjoyment. Very different from "Is this it? Is this not it? Am I doing it right?", etc.
But how many times have I heard, from retreatants practising jhāna, how difficult it is to allow oneself to really enjoy, to fully enjoy? And how, so often, we notice there's something holding back, or something blocking or preventing. And sometimes it's verbal; we actually say, "Oh, this can't be right. This can't be. I don't know what they're teaching here, but it's not proper. It's not proper Dharma," or whatever it is. Sometimes, or more often, it's actually more an energetic thing. We actually just feel ourselves holding back or preventing, and then doubt comes: "Is this really okay?", etc. Sometimes it's because of one's past -- maybe particular kinds of religious upbringings that kind of stress that "Anything spiritual or religious can't have enjoyment, have anything to do with it." Sometimes it might be our Dharma background, our Buddhist Dharma background that has, again, encouraged a sort of snobbishness around enjoyment. Again, all because of certain views around what we're going, and then certain views that get kind of entrenched in terms of persona, and all the rest of it. This is so common. This is really, really common.
What needs to happen with this? Sometimes, a person needs to actually inquire with themselves or with a friend, or with a teacher, or whatever: actually, what are the views? What am I believing here? And what's actually at the root of this psychology, this belief? Perhaps more often, though, it just gets fixed without a big psychological process. It just gets fixed, moment to moment: "Okay, I notice I'm a little bit holding back. The last of E of SASSIE -- can I just enjoy it? This moment -- can I just really savour it and relish it? Can I just really open to it?" So you're just, moment to moment, encouraging the enjoyment, and that is changing the psychological habit patterns, the deeply entrenched psychological habit patterns around enjoyment, around spirituality, etc. More often, I've noticed, it can be healed, that pattern, that holding, that prevention can be healed just by moment to moment, again and again -- I don't have to have a big psychological process about it. But sometimes, some people do; it's really helpful to inquire into that.
[59:30] The work, the play -- it's very labile; it's very responsive; it's very agile. What is the work, play, right now? What do I need to do right now? And sometimes it is: enjoy what you have. Enjoy what you have. Maximize the enjoyment. Again, how powerful that "It's not quite good enough. It's not as good as it was yesterday," etc. And that micro-tendency of the psychology, of the view, to pooh-pooh what we have, or to find fault, to look [for faults]. Actually, what happens is, of everything we could pay attention to -- something nice is going on, something that could be better -- we pay attention to the thing that could be better. It's an inclination of attention, even more than it is of actual thought. "No, this really isn't that good" -- that's quite a gross level. Sometimes it's just where the attention goes: I'm fussing over what's not quite right. So just enjoy what you have. Enjoy the good thing. Sometimes that's the emphasis that needs to be there. That's such a great gift in terms of re-educating, re-programming the psyche. Over and over and over, these micro-moments bring psychological change.
And at other times, it's pleasant, it's nice, it's good, it's going well, the mind is definitely stable, good feeling, whatever it is, pīti, sukha, whatever, but there's just a slight, very, very slight dullness. So what's happening? I'm not falling asleep or anything. It could be one needs to actually bring more presence -- you know, talking very subtle now -- bring more aliveness, bring more alertness. One needs to actually exercise more experimentation and play, rather than just sit there and, "It's okay. It's good. It's fine." Probe more, or whatever it is, play with that intensity up and down, play with the modes of intention, etc. So sometimes, something's pleasant. We think, "Oh, that's good." But actually, what we need to do, for example, is: "Now, can I really ramp up the intensity of the attention in this moment, and really penetrate that?"
So often, as I said, this business of intensity of attention -- many people are not [familiar], because you don't get taught that in school. So we need to familiarize ourselves. What is it in this moment? What does it feel like? And how do I do it -- turn the intensity up, for example? But that will take me, in some moments, to another level. At other times, it will be more just the receptivity. Other times, we don't fuss with trying to make it better. Just enjoy it. So what we need to do at any moment is a constantly shifting ground, kaleidoscope, etc.
What's quite common -- I mentioned, for instance, this experience of light, a sort of white light or golden light. That's pretty common. I call that a 'secondary nimitta.' It's a secondary sign that the samādhi is deepening. The primary one -- again, if we're talking about the first jhāna, the primary one is the pīti. What can happen is, the bright light starts to get very interesting, and the pīti is there as well. This is quite important: can I blend them? Because the light is good, and it's helpful, and it's a sign. But can I mix them? So they're almost like, they're just two aspects of the same thing, two facets of the same thing, so that if I'm kind of probing, if I'm probing the pīti, it's the same as probing the light. I have the experience that probing the pīti is probing the light. And if I'm probing the light, because I can probe the light as something that will take me deeper into the pīti -- in other words, they're just aspects of the same phenomenon. If I can't blend them, then I have to be really sure: what's primary and what's secondary? And the light is secondary. Just leave it. It's fine. It's a good sign, but it's not the primary thing. The primary thing is the pīti, and that's what I'm trying to get into. But oftentimes it is possible -- do you understand what I mean, "mix them together"? It's almost like visually entering the light is the same thing as entering the pīti, for example.
Yogi: [inaudible question, probably about the two S's in the middle of SASSIE]
Rob: They're both referring to Steadiness. One is Steadiness of the attention. And one is Steadiness of the primary nimitta, so steadiness of the pīti -- in other words, it doesn't go away for a second or whatever and come back. Or if it's second jhāna, it's the happiness, or whatever. So two kinds of sustaining.
We use this term 'mastery,' and all this is part of developing mastery. Mastery is not about measuring the self and kind of getting brownie points and ego stuff. It's about working with the jhānas in a way that they're going to really be most fruitful. So what happens? Here I am meditating, and now I've gotten into the first jhāna, and it's trundling along very nicely, and then something happens. I've just been thrown out of that realm. I'm not even sure what happened. I've just been ejected. Or it kind of was, "Oh, it feels like it's losing power a little bit," and then it's gone.
So after -- well, you can try this from the beginning. Once you feel like, "Okay, this must be the territory of the first jhāna, sort of" -- when that happens, when you lose it, see if you can just remember it. Just remember back the first jhāna, or whatever it is. Just see if you can do that. It was a recent experience; it was alive; just remember it back. Just summon it back. It's a very delicate, light movement. Of course, sometimes you won't be able to, and you'll have to go back to your base or springboard practice. Or if you're on another jhāna, you might find a jhāna lower down, or whatever.
So these are all things you can try. Towards the end of a sitting, if you're not completely out of energy, you could practise (just a couple of minutes or whatever, two or three minutes, five minutes) deliberately going from -- let's say you were in the first jhāna or thereabouts. You deliberately go from there to a kind of more normal consciousness. You just drop -- just come out of it deliberately. Spend some time there -- a few moments, a few whatever. And then see if you can come back to the first jhāna -- just jump straight back into the first jhāna. So you're more deliberately jumping.
All this, what I'm going to give you, ideas to try, it's all very light. It's just fun and games. It's just play. I mean, it is part of mastery, but you have to have a very light attitude to it. You're just playing with perception, basically, playing with consciousness, playing with realms.
Now, we talked about walking meditation instructions, right? Should I just briefly go through that again? Yeah? Again, all this applies to: where is my learning edge playground? So let's say I'm now getting used to the first jhāna. I've been in and out. And it's super-exciting, and I'm into it. When I go to the walking period, I stand at one end of my walking path, and I just see: can I go to the energy body, remember back the first jhāna? And I just stand there. Maybe pīti comes. And I just stand, and get into the pīti, and work with it, suffuse it, etc. -- the same deal. And I stand there as long as it takes, or as long as I want to. So I could spend the whole walking period just standing there, and it becomes a standing period. It's fine.
Or after some minutes, when I feel like, "Okay, there's the pīti, and I'm kind of really -- yeah, it's really yummy, I'm really into it, whole body, everything." Then I can begin to walk. The question is: can I keep that focus? Can I keep the primacy of the pīti around as I'm walking? And how fast do I have to walk to do that? The interesting thing is, I might need to walk really fast. Or I might need to walk really slow. So I have to be really responsive to find, what is the pace? All of this is responsive -- sensitive and responsive. [1:09:34] And I can stop anywhere on the path and get into the pīti again, go to the end, take my time, however long I want. Basically, I'm walking up and down in the pīti, and focusing on the pīti, in that bubble, and enjoying and opening and probing that bubble, yeah? Those are the basic walking instructions. We can come back to that.
Now, some of this, what I'm going to put out now, actually, you have to be a little careful with the pacing of when you try it. But after you've had enough experience or familiarity with the first jhāna and the pīti, then, let's say you're in the lunch queue. And it's not your turn to dole the food on your plate. But you're in the lunch queue. Can I be there in the lunch queue, and just remember back the pīti, and maybe even the whole jhānic state? And maybe you get it back, and then can I get into it for thirty seconds, a minute? If it's a really slow lunch queue, you can -- however long. Or you're having a cup of tea in the lounge or the library: "Just let me see. Can I find the pīti? Is it there? Can I summon it? Can I remember it, and then get into it?" Or you're walking down the corridor here: "Let's just see. I walk down the corridor -- let's see if I can walk down the corridor in the pīti." I'm just remembering or summoning it -- very, very light. Or you're sitting on the toilet, or you're lying down in bed before -- whatever.
So what you're really doing is deliberately remembering the state, deliberately remembering the perception, actually, and the subtlest of intentions, the subtlest of intentions to recall it. So you have to have enough familiarity with the pīti and the jhāna for this, to begin to try this. You don't want to try it too early, because it would just be a bit frustrating. Sometimes, a little whisper, a silent whisper in the mind -- for instance, 'rapture' (one of the translations of pīti) or 'bliss' or whatever, or 'pīti,' if you want Pali. Just like a grain of something into the citta, and it does its magic. The mind, as samādhi gets deeper and deeper, the mind becomes more and more suggestive. Very, very subtle suggestions actually work their magical power. But this needs enough familiarity. Like I said, you don't want to try it too early or put too much pressure on. This is the sort of thing that, in one-to-one interviews, I might wait until I suggest this to a person. You get the sense, and sometimes I find myself more aware that it's available. It's almost like you can feel it in them, but the person hasn't realized that it's just available yet, so: "Why don't you try this?"
Eventually, like I described in the walking period, actually, you can begin your sittings that way. You can begin with pīti, begin with the first jhāna, or if the third jhāna is your learning edge playground, you begin with the third jhāna. It's a very, very subtle intention, etc. Now of course, while you're still working on that, sometimes you're going to try it, and you know, "Okay, 'rapture!' ... Okay, 'rapture!'" [laughter] "Come on, now!" You know, five, ten minutes max. If it's not igniting, it's not igniting. Fine. Back to the base practice. But in time, this becomes, more than anything else, the way you get into jhāna. You just remember it. You just have this subtlest of intention. So this, as I said, is part of the elements of mastery.
We have to be careful with energy here, because one of the functions of the base practice or the springboard practice is actually that it gives energy. You build energy through it. So if you just start right away with the pīti, sometimes it will go for a little while, but the whole sitting, it will be sooner in the sitting when you kind of run out of it -- sometimes. Other times not. The analogy I use sometimes is like a long jumper needs a run-up, but again, it's one of those analogies that really doesn't work when you think about it. [laughter] Because there are some long jumpers that don't need run-ups, sometimes! Okay, I'll rework that one. [laughter] In other words, sometimes we might find the pīti -- great, but then fifteen minutes later, it's all just dissipated. We didn't have enough energy built up from the base practice. But it's still worth playing with. At that point, okay, go back to the base practice; doesn't matter! What's more important here is the malleability.
So when you get to that point -- and again, don't hurry all this. Some people, it's like they're hearing all this, and they want to try it immediately, and it's too soon. Other people, they [think]: "Oh, I couldn't possibly do that. That sounds completely advanced and outlandish." And actually, they're ready for it. So talk with us about it. Try a little bit. It's all very light. But probably wait for these things. And at first -- not every time -- just occasionally try it. "Okay, I'm going to my sitting now, and let's see if I can get it just by subtle intention." But not every time. Eventually it is possible.
Okay, then I'm sitting, and it's all going really well. What do I do? What do I do then? I sit. And I sit more. And I sit more. I basically sit as long as it's good. And 'good' means, primarily, as long as this jhāna is good. Marinate. So yes, there's a place for moving quickly between jhānas, but that's got a very minor place. Much more, we want to marinate. Sit as long as this jhāna is sustainable and feels good. So this marination business is so important. We want to work towards, like, let's say, a minimum -- minimum, I'm able to sit in really nice pīti, really pretty absorbed, for an hour. Let's just throw something like that out for a minimum, if I don't have to go to my work job or whatever it is.
If I'm zipping through one to eight -- let's say, I just zip through one to eight, and then I come back down eight to one, and that's my practice, and I 'practise the jhānas' -- my question is: is that making much difference to your life? Really, honestly ask yourself: is that making much difference? What difference is it making? How much difference? And if it's not, why are you practising that way? Why would I keep doing that? Maybe someone's taught me that way. Maybe that's my understanding of the text, whatever. But why? The point of all this is to make a difference: a real, profound, liberating, beautiful difference, a whole depth of resource, and all the other stuff we talked about. So the marination is one of the primary things that will really make the difference.
So I'm sitting as long as I can within my playground -- let's say that's the pīti of the first jhāna -- and then at some point, I start to run out of batteries. The whole thing -- my energy goes a little bit. So either the pīti begins to subside, mind starts to get a bit more distracted, or areas of the body start to get uncomfortable -- pain or whatever. Is it possible to resurrect it? So I've run out of batteries, but sometimes it's almost like you get a little emergency supply somewhere that you can tap into. And I just resurrect the pīti, find a way, and it comes back for some minutes, perhaps. Maybe (this is all very variable) you get a couple of shots at an extra five or ten minutes, just by resurrecting it. So just the fact that it disappeared doesn't mean you can't somehow find a way to get it back. Maybe that involves going back to your base or springboard practice, etc.
But at a certain point, it's like, "Okay, there's no more juice in the tank. It's not going to come back." Then, time to do something different. Either you get up and you do walking meditation, standing meditation, or you just go and have a cup of tea. Go and relax, rest the citta, appreciate, look at the beauty outside. Put the mind in that just restful, open, light gratitude. Maybe it's time for your yoga practice or whatever it is. Maybe you go for a walk. But there will be times in this kind of practice where you need to rest. You just need to rest, if we're doing it this way. Don't sit-walk-sit-walk-sit-walk. You actually need to rest and recharge.
So again, you have to be a little careful about the pacing of when you begin to try this stuff, but eventually, as I mentioned, part of mastery is that you can go for a walk -- not just walking meditation, but you can go for a walk in your bubble of pīti, and giving that the primary attention. Or you can go for a walk in your bubble of peacefulness of the third jhāna, or stillness of the fourth jhāna, or whatever. And your primary focus is on that quality, that primary quality -- stillness, peacefulness, pīti, whatever it is -- and you're really enjoying it, and you're not really having to worry about where the feet place themselves, etc. So again, when is it time to introduce this, introduce trying to play with this? You can talk to us and find out, or just try it. You don't want to put too much pressure, and you have to be a little careful with the pacing here. But at first, it's all just games. So, "Okay, let's see if I can walk from here to that tree over there in pīti." And maybe it's fifty yards, or whatever. It doesn't matter. And then gradually, you can extend that. This is part of the fun, part of the playing, and part of the mastery. No pressure, very light. It's really just playfulness.
Let's say you're sitting, and it's time to come out of the jhāna now. The lunch bell goes, and if you're into it, it's like, "Aww, who cares about lunch?" And that's a very healthy response. And then suddenly you remember, "Oh, I have the lunch wash-up to do, so I need my lunch." So then, "Okay, I need to end." Sometimes, at first, coming out of a jhāna, you need to do it quite slowly, because it's really quite an altered state. So if you just open your eyes and jump up, it might be a bit disorienting and jarring. So when you're new to certain states, I would suggest coming out quite gradually.
But secondly, as part of that, sometimes, why don't you see if it's possible to kind of keep the jhānic quality around? Keep a connection with that, and have that even be the primary focus. So okay, I'm going now to lunch, or whatever it is, I'm sitting, open the eyes. As I open the eyes, I'm still really in touch with the pīti, if we're talking about the first jhāna, or whatever it is. As I get up, still; as I move out -- maybe as I move out, I begin to lose it. So I just stop a little bit, see if I can get it back, and move again. Again, it's all playfulness.
I'll say this again, but when we get to the higher jhānas, you don't need to come out in sequence. So right now we're talking about the first jhāna, but let's say you're working on the third jhāna. When you come out, you don't need to go, "Okay, three, two, one." You don't need to do it, just as you don't need to go "one, two, three" to get into the third jhāna. So sometimes you can do that, but that's just because that's the game you've decided to play that day. You could do three, one, two, and then come out, or three to zero, or whatever. But you certainly don't need to do that.
Okay, a couple of things, in a way implicit in what I've said, but it's so important -- couple of things about effort: patience and perseverance. The more you do this, the more you realize that the state of the citta and the perception, there can be quantum jumps in a split second, in this kind of practice -- often unexpectedly. Nothing's really happening, nothing's really happening -- suddenly, there's an opening. If I'm getting dejected and despondent when nothing is happening, and I'm getting impatient, and I'm kind of giving up the alertness and refinement of my antennae, that very attitude will prevent these quantum jumps happening, because I've turned something off. In other words, don't get sucked into impatience. Don't get sucked into a view of, "Oh, this is terrible," or whatever. Then your antennae are there, and it's really quite remarkable how quickly things can shift. There's just a quantum leap, and suddenly a door is there, and you can go through it. [1:23:17] So that's part [of it]: patience and perseverance, because that kind of thing is possible.
But patience and perseverance with playfulness -- really, really important -- meaning, "Do I need to be a bit more active here? Do I need to kind of bump up the sense of presence, the aliveness? Do I need to make sure my antennae are attentive to subtleties? Do I need to try different things? Do I need to play with the subtle effort levels a bit more, a bit less?" So patience and perseverance, but with playfulness.
And always this question: what needs emphasizing? What needs prioritizing right now? Right now in this moment, what needs emphasizing? What needs prioritizing? Is it, in this moment, or for this little stretch of time, that the concentration, the stability of attention on the object, on the breath or the primary nimitta, the pīti, whatever -- is that what needs the emphasis right now, the priority? Or is it the subtlety of attention that needs the emphasis and the priority now? Or is it the surrendering? Or is it the spreading? Or is it the maximizing of the enjoyment, moment to moment? These are all different emphases: "Okay, now for this little stretch in this practice period, that's what I'm emphasizing, or that's what needs emphasizing." This is what I mean by a kind of playfulness, agility, responsiveness, willingness.
Some of you might have heard the instruction to review a jhāna after you're out. Has anyone heard that before? A couple of people, yeah. So this a little bit gets interpreted in different ways, but I'd say, one of the things is, one of the questions to ask is: was there anything new that I learnt there? Was there anything new for me, anything helpful that I learnt? In other words, there something happened that felt like it was an opening, an improvement, a deepening or whatever in some way. Was it anything different that I did, perhaps? Anything at all. And just to remember it at that point before you get up, and try it again. And it might have been a coincidence. It might not have been that thing. But it might be, yes, it was that thing that you did, or did differently, or a different weighting or emphasis or whatever.
In the larger scale of things, you might want to check: "Am I neglecting the first and second jhāna?", for instance. So it's more of a macroscopic checking, reviewing. Sometimes, what you often hear is, part of the reviewing of a jhāna, after a jhāna, is to review the fact of its impermanence, lest you mistake a jhāna for a permanent thing. I find that a little puzzling, because it's completely obvious, or it should be completely obvious that it's impermanent. It should be completely obvious, or it becomes much more obvious with time that it's also not an achievement of the self. A jhāna is dependent on certain causes and conditions coming together. And the more you practise, the more that should become glaringly obvious. There's actually very little danger to get attached to expecting a jhāna to be permanent, and also very little danger to the self getting grandiose, I think.
It's dependent on causes and conditions, so it's definitely impermanent. It's dependent on causes and conditions. It's also empty. In terms of the deeper levels of its emptiness, don't do that yet. Don't contemplate its emptiness yet. Some of you won't quite know what that means, but if you're familiar with emptiness practice, leave that aside. It's something we'll come back to later as an option. And that's not part of reviewing a jhāna. And also, its microscopic impermanence -- don't do that either. That will not be helpful at this point. We don't want to deconstruct jhānas too soon. We want to let them construct. Deconstructing a jhāna too soon is really like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I've actually missed the point. We can always deconstruct later. What we want is actually to consolidate, to see it and experience it as something continuous and homogenous, not impermanent, with lots of holes in it, and not full of its opposite, etc.
Okay, last thing: outside of formal practice, and perhaps when you're doing your work job, or you're just having a shower, or whatever you're doing, there are times when the citta needs to rest. You really need to not put too much pressure on it. But there's a spectrum there, because still you can have quite a kind of light contact or light presence, light sense of the presence of the primary jhāna factor, the pīti or whatever. Either you can completely rest, just let the whole thing go, or you can be like, "I'm moving down the corridor, really in this pīti, or going for a walk in this pīti," or you can just be moving around with just a light sense of the flavour of the primary jhāna factor, whether it's pīti or sukha or whatever it is. Generally speaking, the whole sort of tone and tenor of the practice outside of sitting should be really quite light, really quite easy, open: just this light mindfulness, open, light, easy. That's the vibe of things.
Again, remember, all this is jhāna practice, all of it. We also want to be vigilant to the coming and going of the hindrances, okay? And not take them personally, if that's possible, and not believe them. But we're aware, because they come, and they're really like poison darts. A hindrance comes, and it spreads its poison into the citta, and then starts colouring the view of the self. It starts colouring the view of other people. It starts colouring the view of the perception, the view of the retreat. Hindrances are like poison darts. We need to be really quite aware when they're around, not believe them, not take them personally.
Okay. So that's good. We got through what I was intending. So what that means for tomorrow is, I may well be in, or depending on what happens, also I may not be in. But at least we've done that.
E.g. AN 5:28. ↩︎
MN 43 and MN 111. ↩︎
Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga, tr. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli (Onalaska, WA: Pariyatti, 1999). ↩︎
Rob Burbea, "A Hidden Treasure: The Relationship with the Hindrances" (19 Dec. 2019), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/60867/, accessed 19 Feb. 2020. ↩︎
E.g. AN 5:28. ↩︎
Buddhaghosa, Path of Purification, 323--4. ↩︎
MN 43, AN 9:37. ↩︎
See Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, "Silence Isn't Mandatory: Sensory Perception in the Jhānas" (2014), 17--20, https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/CrossIndexed/Uncollected/MiscEssays/SilenceIsntMandatory4.pdf, accessed 16 Feb. 2020. ↩︎
SN 12:15. ↩︎
