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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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Overview

This project, namely the book you are reading, Vipassanā in Jhāna: A Personal Narrative and Practical Guide, has slowly evolved into a practical, self-help guide on how to develop jhāna, and how to integrate that jhāna into a normal vipassanā practice.

Like most meditators in the Theravāda tradition, I had been taught that there are two types of meditation: samatha-bhāvana, aimed at developing altered states of consciousness, called jhāna, and vipassanā-bhāvana, aimed at developing insight into the nature of reality, through the observation of mind and matter. And further, I had also been taught, both by the popular authors I had read and also by the teachers I had worked with, that these are two quite separate practices, and since insight into reality cannot developed through the practice of jhāna, then vipassanā meditators do not, indeed should not, attain jhāna.

However, to my utter astonishment, jhāna unexpectedly arose during the course of a 20-day silent vipassanā retreat. And then, to my further astonishment, I found that I could practice vipassanā in exactly the same manner I had been doing for many years, but while in the state of jhāna. And even more astonishing, it was clear that vipassanā while in the state of jhāna was far more powerful, far more effective, than it had been previously without jhāna. That happened a long time ago, and from that time, over the course of many years, over the course of a significant number of 30-day and 10-day silent retreats, over the course of many years of daily practice, I have learned to incorporate jhāna into my normal practice of vipassanā-bhāvana.

Without a doubt, the incorporation of jhāna into my vipassanā practice has been extremely beneficial to both my meditation practice itself, and to my daily life. This has led to deeply profound spiritual experiences that have significantly impacted my understanding of the Buddha’s path, deepened my confidence in the Buddha and his teaching, and moved me forward along the Buddha’s path in ways that are hard to describe. I now understand, through my own experience, that the Buddha intended us to practice vipassanā while in a state of jhāna.

However, although this has been a wonderful journey, it has not been so simple. It is not at all obvious how we should practice vipassanā, and we all need the benefit of help and advice. Of course, first and foremost, we depend on the insights of the Buddha, as the foundation of our practice, and his teachings will always remain the main source of advice and inspiration. But apart from that, we can all benefit greatly from the advice of a teacher, or at least a more senior meditator, to guide us through the process. I did not have such advice. Without a teacher to guide me, without any advice I could rely on, I blundered around, trying to figure out what these jhānas were, how we should practice them, and how we should integrate them into our own practice of vipassanā. I made many mistakes, and wasted much time.

For a variety of reasons, I felt my experiences would not be welcomed by my vipassanā colleagues, and so for many years I told no one about this part of my practice. I am now eighty-years old, and I have decided to share what happened and what I learned. Through this project, it is my earnest wish that other vipassanā meditators might get the same benefits I did. My hope is that I can help other vipassanā meditators get the wonderful benefits of attaining jhāna, and then of practicing vipassanā while in states of jhāna; hopefully without them making the same mistakes and wasting as much time as I did.

My initial idea was that I would simply describe what I did, and the experiences that followed, and make that available to other vipassanā meditators. I started by writing a detailed narrative of my experience over six, silent retreats: the initial one of twenty days and following that, five silent retreats of thirty days each. This personal narrative has become Part One of this book.

Part One has three chapters.

Chapter 1 provides some background information, about myself and how I came to practice the Buddha’s teaching, and more importantly, the predispositions I bring to my practice.

Chapter 2 describes the first time jhāna arose, on a twenty-day silent retreat. I describe what led to jhāna, my thoughts and reactions as I experienced them, and my struggle to understand what was happening. This chapter also includes my attempts to fit these experiences into the teachings I had received, and into my own personal understanding of the Dhamma—both practical and theoretical.

Chapter 3 then describes a series of five 30-day silent retreats, in which I worked with these four jhānas, learning how to incorporate them into my practice.

This was not a simple linear process. I had both great success and dramatic failure, and it took me a number of years, and hundreds of hours of meditation, to learn how to manage these states and incorporate the into my vipassanā practice. This is a personal narrative, and events are described with as much clarity and detail as I can, so that those who read this can know what I did and what resulted from that, and can then compare their own experiences to mine.

Of course, over the course of those six retreats described in my narrative, as well as over the course of the many years that have followed, I have come to understand more about both the jhānas themselves, as well as the benefits they bring. It seemed natural to add my thoughts and conclusions to the narrative, and these insights slowly evolved into Part Two of this project.

Part Two has six chapters.

Chapter 4 describes the considerable benefits to me personally that have resulted from working with the jhānas. The experience of jhāna—these incredible states of altered consciousness—has been a life-changing experience, and has had a considerable impact on both my meditation practice itself, as well as on the quality of my daily life. I am a significantly changed person because of this.

Chapter 5 is really the “meat” of the whole project. In this chapter, I attempt to explain how I believe others can attain and use jhāna, based on my own experience. This starts with a discussion of the nature of jhāna and how the experience of jhāna seems to vary from one person to another. There is then a section describing what aspects of my practice changed, and how these changes led to jhāna, along with a discussion of how others can make similar changes and attain jhāna themselves. The third part of this chapter then describes how to incorporate these jhānas into a daily vipassanā practice.

Chapter 6 addresses the issue of why anyone should believe what I say, or accept my advice. It explores what historical vipassanā teachers have said about the practice of jhāna and its relationship to vipassanā. The discussion starts with the teaching of the Buddha as presented in the Pāli Canon, and then examines the most influential historical teachers leading up to the modern, global, lay vipassanā movement.

Chapter 7 examines the writings of a number of practicing scholar monks, as well as other lay scholars, who address the topic of jhāna and its importance in the practice of vipassanā.

Chapter 8 then summarizes what these experts say. This summary makes it clear that the Buddha told his monks to practice vipassanā while in a state of jhāna. The evidence for this is overwhelming. It is also clear that most of the historical vipassanā teachers that provided the foundational practices of the modern global vipassanā movement acknowledge the benefits of jhāna in the practice of vipassanā. However, these teachers also tended to de-emphasize jhāna, since their main aim was usually to promote vipassanā among the lay community, who generally lacked the time, the facilities, and possibly the motivation, needed to attain jhāna. My contention is that now, since many lay practitioners have the opportunity to sit longer retreats, in ideal conditions, they can revert to practicing vipassanā in the same manner the Buddha taught his monks of old.

Chapter 9 addresses a number of thoughts directed mainly at practitioners in the U Ba Khin tradition, my close peers, although I believe that much of what I say is relevant, and generalizable, to other vipassanā traditions. I first discuss my teachers and their achievements—this is essentially an expression of my deep gratitude to them for their contribution to the current, world-wide vipassanā revival. I then address how we should talk about jhāna, both to those lay people taking longer retreats, and also among ourselves. Finally, I talk about the long line of teachers who preserved vipassanā from ancient times.

On the question of the generalizability of my experience, and how this applies to other meditators, some people may argue that my experiences are unusual. However, I disagree. I do not believe that I am unique; not in any way. I know that other vipassanā meditators also attain jhāna on long retreats: perhaps more than we realize. Further, there are also other meditators, and other meditation traditions, that regularly use jhāna. So I believe jhāna is accessible to those serious meditators who are prepared to make sufficient effort.

However, my experience does suggest that without guidance, such experiences can be very disconcerting, especially when they are unexpected. I believe that at the very least we should offer a few simple warnings and guidelines that would enable meditators to avoid the confusion I suffered when these powerful states of altered consciousness unexpectedly arose. But I also believe that we should go much further. I believe we should encourage all vipassanā meditators to work towards jhāna, if possible. The benefits are far too important to ignore.

I understand that many of my vipassanā colleagues will feel uncomfortable with what I have to say. My ideas are likely to appear controversial to many. That seems quite natural to me. Skepticism is a healthy attitude, and is something I think we should encourage. The main reason I have described everything in such detail is so that others can replicate my experience, compare them with their own, and then judge themselves whether the conclusions I have drawn are reasonable or not. The Buddha taught that one of the characteristics of the Dhamma is ehipassiko—“come and see for yourselves.” To my peers, my colleagues in Dhamma, I simply say: “Try jhāna, and if you find it beneficial to your practice, then use it, and if not, then keep practicing as you are now.”

Finally, a note on Pāli.

The oldest Buddhist texts are about 2,500 years old, and are preserved in an ancient Indian language called Pāli. This language has evolved into a very precise vehicle for the expression of Buddhist ideas. Many words relevant to Buddhist meditation have precise definitions in Pāli, whereas their English translations are usually both imprecise and misleading. Therefore, most serious meditators in the Theravāda tradition, regardless of their native language, tend to use these Pāli terms. I have continued this practice, since I would not know how to discuss these issues without using the Pāli terms.

In order to make this comprehensible to those not familiar with these terms, I have tried to provide the best English equivalent alongside any Pāli word, and also to provide an explanation when it seemed helpful. I have also provided a Glossary of terms at the end, so that readers can remind themselves of what these terms mean.

End of Overview

If you wish to begin reading online, then please click this link:

Chapter 1: Some Background

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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If you would like more information about the sections within each chapter, you can see the detailed table of contents below.

Detailed Table of Contents

Overview

Chapter 1: Some Background

• Getting Established

• A Taboo Topic

Chapter 2: My First Experience

• How We Practice

• The First Jhāna

• After Vipassanā Day

• My Theoretical Research

Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• The First Enemy

• The Third Retreat

• The Arūpas

• The Second Enemy

• The Last Retreat

Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Benefits to My Life

• Understanding of Dhamma

Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Can We Generalize?

• The Nature of Jhāna

• The Importance of Effort

• Impediments to Success

• Maintaining Jhāna in Daily Life

• Summary Advice on Using Jhāna

Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• The Need for Cross-Validation

• The Buddha

• Buddhaghosa

• Medawi Sayadaw

• Ledi Sayadaw

• Mahasi Sayadaw

• U Ba Khin

• Other Meditation Teachers

• When Jhāna is the Default

Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Ajahn Ṭhānissaro

• Ajahn Sujato

• Bhikkhu Anālayo

• Modern Lay Scholars

Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• My Gratitude

• The Organization

• Guidance for Conducting Long Retreats

• Challenging the Taboo

• An Ancient Tradition

In Conclusion

References

Glossary

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Vipassana In Jhana 260525

949KB ∙ PDF file

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The complete text.

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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Public comments are turned off. But feel free to message me privately, in confidence, if you wish. And if you find any typos, or mistakes, kindly let me know.

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Gary Buck

This is my book. It is a free publication about vipassanā meditation; specifically vedanānupassanā, as taught in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin and Sri S. N. Goenka. It focuses primarily on the advantages and desirability of integrating jhāna into that practice.

The suttas of the Pāli Canon tell us that the Buddha taught his monks to practice vipassanā while in the state of jhāna. Historically, this practice has become neglected, especially with the recent spread of vipassanā to the global, lay community. But now, with the wonderful opportunities for lay people to sit for longer retreats, under ideal conditions, we have the opportunity to practice vipassanā in the same manner the Buddha taught.

This book describes my attempts to do just that. I first entered jhāna by accident. Then, over the course of a number of silent retreats, and years of daily practice—while making all sorts of mistakes—I have learned to incorporate jhāna into my regular vipassanā practice, while strictly following the instructions I had received from my teachers. The results have been extremely beneficial; life changing, in fact.

The book began as a simple narrative of what happened, in order to inform and perhaps help my peers. However over the years, I have learned a great deal about jhāna, as I came to understand these states better, and realized their incredible benefit. So slowly, this book has evolved into a practical guide on how to attain jhāna, and then how to incorporate that into a normal vipassanā practice. I hope it will be helpful to other meditators.

This is just a simple introduction. If you would like a more detailed explanation of the book and its contents, then click this link to the Overview, where you will find a detailed rationale, an explanation of each chapter, and a more detailed table of contents.

How to Read this Book

If you would like to begin reading the text now, there are three ways to do that:

1. Read the full book online: Click here, and read in sequence from Chapter 1 to the Conclusion, by following the links at the end of each chapter.

2. Use the Table of Contents to select any chapter. A list of References and a Glossary of Pāli words can be found at the end.

3. Download a PDF of the whole book.

Although individual chapters may be read independently, the work is structured as a coherent whole, which reflects the development of my own understanding of jhāna, and its role in vipassanā.

Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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PDF of full text.

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Thank you for reading Gary Buck’s Substack. Everything here is free. I do not accept donations. You are free to copy or distribute the content, as long as you give credit, and for noncommercial purposes only.

Public comments are turned off. But feel free to message me privately, in confidence, if you wish. And if you find any typos, or mistakes, kindly let me know.

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New readers: Go to Overview | Table of Contents | PDF Download

Navigation: References

Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Glossary

abhidhamma: Sometimes called the higher dhamma. It is a set of very detailed analyses, and explanations of the processes of mind. It was compiled soon after the death of the Buddha, and constitutes one part of the Pāli Cannon, the ancient Buddhist Theravāda scriptures.

Abhidhammattha Sangaha: A summary of the Abhidhamma, written in Sri Lanka by Ācariya Anuruddha, some time about the 12th century.

ānāpāna-sati: Mindfulness of breathing; probably the most common type of Buddhist meditation, and the one used by the Buddha himself to attain enlightenment.

anattā: Not-self. Ego-less-ness. One of the three characteristics of all existence, along with anicca (constant change) and dukkha (misery, unsatisfactoriness).

anicca: Change. Everything is changing, nothing remains constant. One of the three characteristics of all existence, along with anatā (no substantial essence, not-self) and dukkha (misery, unsatisfactoriness).

appanā samādhi: Full jhāna; or jhāna as the term is used in the Sutta Piṭaka. The mind in the Fine Material Sphere of consciousness, according to the Abhidhamma. Sometimes referred to as “sutta jhāna.”

appanā-vipassanā: A term sometimes used to describe the practice of vipassanā while in appanā samādhi, or full jhāna.

arūpa: Four states of consciousness that take entirely mental, or non-material, objects of meditation. They are very much like extensions of the fourth jhāna. In English they are called, infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness and neither-perception-nor-nonpercption.

bhāvanā: Mental development. Meditation.

bhāvanā maya paññā: An expression from the Pāli scriptures that means ‘wisdom that is acquired through personal experience’. Wisdom, or knowledge, is classified as of three types: what we have heard, what we have understood through reason, and what we have understood through experience. Only the wisdom that arises through personal experience can liberate one.

bhikkhu: A buddhist monk.

brahmavihāra: Literally, the abode of the gods. This refers to four pure states of mind: mettā (loving kindness), karunā (compassion), mudita (joy at others’ good fortune) and upekkhā (equanimity).

dāna: Donations, charity; especially giving donations to enable others to practice dhamma,

dhamma: The Buddha’s teaching. The law of nature.

dōsa: Hatred, aversion. One of the three states that underlie all unwholesome mind moments. The others are lōbha (greed), and mōha (delusion).

dukkha: Misery; suffering; unsatisfactoriness.

ehipassiko: An expression meaning, “try it and see for yourself.” The Buddha said that this is one of the important qualities of the dhamma.

ekaggatā: Concentration, one-pointedness of mind. A synonym for samādhi.

jhāna: An elevated state of consciousness, called the Fine-Material Sphere (rūpa loka), with intense concentration and feelings of bliss and calm well-being. There are four jhānas with increasing levels of concentration and refinement, characterized by what are called “jhāna factors,” namely the most salient mental characteristics of each state. The first jhāna has vitakka (thought conception), vicāra (discursive thought), pīti (joy), sukha (bliss), and ekaggatā (concentration); the second jhāna has pīti (joy), sukha (bliss), and ekaggatā (concentration); the third jhāna has sukha (bliss), and ekaggatā (concentration); the fourth jhāna has equanimity (upekkhā) and ekaggatā (concentration).

Kālāma Sutta: A famous sutta in the Pāli Cannon in which the Buddha exhorts his followers not to accept any teaching unless they have verified it by personal experience.

kalyāṇa-mitta: A good friend; namely a meditation guide.

kamma: Literally, action; any action. However, it is usually used to describe actions of mind (most notably, volition) that leave a residue which then has later effects on one’s life. This is the original meaning of this term. The English use of the word, usually given as “karma,” is used to describe the results of our actions, which is actually a misunderstanding of the original concept.

khaṇika samādhi: Momentary concentration. When the mind is concentrated for short periods, with normal sense-sphere consciousness, but is concentrated long enough to begin the practice of meditation.

karuṇā: Compassion. One of the brahmavihāra, those four pure, or divine, states of mind: the others are mettā (loving kindness), mudita (joy at others’ good fortune) and upekkhā (equanimity).

lōbha: Greed. Craving. One of the three states that underlie all unwholesome mind moments. The others are dōsa (aversion) and mōha (delusion).

mettā: Loving kindness. One of the brahmavihārā, four pure, or divine, states of mind: the others are karuṇā (compassion), mudita (joy at others’ good fortune) and upekkhā (equanimity).

mōha: Delusion. Ignorance. One of the three states that underlie all unwholesome mind moments. The others are lōbha (greed), and dōsa (aversion).

muditā: Joy at others’ good fortune. One of the brahmavihārā, four pure, or divine, states of mind: the others are mettā (loving kindness), karuṇā (compassion), and upekkhā (equanimity).

nāmarupa: Literally “name and form”; the term refers to mind and body, or the totality of the person. The best English translation is “mind and matter.”

nibbāna: Enlightenment; the supreme state.

nikāya: Volume. This usually refers to the four oldest volumes in the Sutta Piṭaka, part of the Pāli Canon. The four are: the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima Nikāya, the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and the Aṅguttara Nikāya.

nimitta: A small mental image, that is used as an object of meditation to concentrate the mind. This may appear naturally as the mind becomes more concentrated, or it may be artificially created by memorizing a small disk-shaped object.

nīvaraṇa: The hindrances, which are the mental states that prevent the mind from good concentration, especially jhāna. There are five hindrances: sense desire (kāmacchanda), aversion (vyāpāda), sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha), restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca) and doubt (vicikiccha).

Pāli Canon: The oldest set of written teaching of the Buddha. The canon has three parts: the Sutta Piṭaka, with hundrds of suttas attributed to the Buddha; the Vinaya Piṭaka, three volumes of rules for monks, supplemented by discussion of doctrine and illustrative stories. And the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, extensive and detailed analysis of mind and matter. The Pāli Canon was composed in the centuries after the Buddha’s death, and maintained in an oral tradition for many centuries. It was first written down around the 1st century BCE, at the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka.

pañca khandhā: The five aggregates that compose the totality of a human being—material body (rupa), consciousness (viññāṇa), cognition (saññā), feeling (vedanā) and reactions (saṅkhāra). Taken all together, these are often referred to as nāmarūpa, which translates as “mind and matter.”

paññā: Wisdom. Understanding the nature of reality.

pārami: Spiritual qualities that, when perfected, lead to sainthood. There are ten pārami, which are: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, effort, forbearance, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness and equanimity. These are developed over many lives of practice. In popular discourse, the term ‘good pārami’ is an expression used to describe someone who takes readily to the Buddha’s teaching.

pīti: Intensely pleasant bodily sensation.

samādhi: Concentration. One-pointedness of mind.

samādhi-samāpannassa vipassanā: A Pāli expression meaning the vipassanā practiced while in jhāna. (samādhi-samāpanna means “having entered jhāna”).

samatha-bhāvanā: Meditation focused on developing concentration, by attaining states of jhāna. In the ancient commentaries (e.g. The Visuddhimagga) this is contrasted with vipassanā-bhāvanā, meditation to attain wisdom and liberation.

sammā-samādhi: Right Concentration. One of the steps of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, the path to liberation. Scholars agree that this refers to states of jhāna. Sammā- samādhi (Right Concentration), along with sammā-vāyāma (Right Effort) and sammā- sati (Right Awareness) form that part of the Eightfold Path that relates to the practice of meditation; namely the bhāvanā section of the path.

sammā-sati: Right Awareness. One of the steps of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, the path to liberation. Sammā- sati (Right Awareness) along with Sammā-vāyāma (Right Effort) and Sammā- samādhi (Right Concentration) form that part of the Eightfold Path that relates to the practice of meditation; namely the bhāvanā section of the path.

sammā-vāyāma: Right Effort. One of the steps of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, the path to liberation. Sammā-vāyāma (Right Effort) along with Sammā- samādhi (Right Concentration) and sammā- sati (Right Awareness) form that part of the Eightfold Path that relates to the practice of meditation; namely the bhāvanā section of the path. .

samādhi: Concentration of mind. One of the three main parts of the Buddha’s path, along with sīla morality and paññā wisdom.

samsāra: The cycle of birth and death, in which each life is followed by another. The situation in which each life arises is determined by mind moments created in previous lives.

saṃyojana: Fetters, states of mind that prevent a person from attaining enlightenment. There are ten fetters in total. The first five fetters prevent a person from attaining the first stage of liberation, the first taste of nibbāna. These five are: personality belief (sakkāya-diṭṭhi), doubt about the teaching (vicikicchā), attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa), sensual desire (kāmacchando), and ill will (vyāpādo).

saṅgha: The order of Buddhist monks, established by the Buddha during his lifetime.

saṅkhāra: The reactions of the mind. One of the four components of mind. These mental processes that determine the moral value of our thoughts, words and deeds. The most notable ones are lōbha (craving), dōsa (aversion) and mōha (delusion). These are considered unwholesome and must be avoided. Any states of mind that are not based on one of these three are, by definition, wholesome states of mind.

saññā: The cognitive processes of the mind. That part of the mind that evaluates the object of consciousness.

sati: Awareness. Mindfulness.

Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta: The Foundations of Mindfulness. A famous sutta from the Pāli Cannon, that provides much of the theoretical basis for the practice of vipassanā meditation.

sāsana: The Buddha’s dispensation. The period of time during which the Buddha’s teaching remains available to the world. The current sāsana is that of Gotama Buddha. This is traditionally expected to last 5,000 years. Furthermore, in Theravāda countries, traditionally it was expected that there would be a revival of interest in the Buddha’s teaching at the half-way point of the sāsana, 2,500 years after the Buddha’s death, or about the middle of the twentieth century. Currently we are just past that mid-point, and we can see that here has indeed been a considerable revival, and one that is still growing today. Indeed, we are very fortunate to be part of it.

sīla: Morality. Good conduct.

sukha: A very intense type of pleasant feeling.

sukkhavipassanā: Dry insight; the practice of vipassanā without attaining jhāna.

Sutta Piṭaka: That part of the Pāli Canon that contains the discourses of the Buddha. It consists of four volumes: the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima Nikāya, the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and the Aṅguttara Nikāya.

Theravāda: Literally, The Way of the Elders. It is the most ancient school of Buddhism, based on the writings found in the Pāli Cannon, which is the oldest record of the teachings of the historical Buddha.

upacāra samādhi: Access concentration. Sometimes called neighborhood concentration. The level of concentration necessary for entering jhāna.

upāya-kosalla: literally means “skill in means” or skillfulness in choosing the best teaching method, and is usually used to describe the Buddha’s ability to choose the most effective way to help others understand the dhamma, depending on their capacities and level of understanding.

upekkhā: Equanimity. A pure, balanced, non-reactive state of mind.

vedanā: Feeling. Bodily sensation.

vedanānupassanā: Meditation that takes bodily sensation (vedanā) as the object of meditation.

vedanā-paccayā tanhā: A famous expression in Pāli, that means that it is reaction to feelings, or bodily sensations (vedanā) that leads to craving and aversion, and hence suffering.

vicāra: Discursive thinking. One of the two components of inner speech: vitakka is the arising of thought, which may or may not, lead to vicāra, discursive thinking or rolling in thought.

viññāṇa: Consciousness. There are six types of consciousness: consciousness of the five physical sense inputs, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell; as well as consciousness of mental contents.

vipassanā: Insight. Often used to refer the practice of meditation designed to develop wisdom, or insight into the nature of reality.

vipassanā-bhāvanā: Meditation to develop insight, or liberating wisdom. In the ancient commentaries (e.g. The Visuddhimagga) this is contrasted with samatha-bhāvanā, meditation focused on developing concentration, by attaining states of jhāna.

Visuddhimagga: Literally, The Path to Enlightenment. A very famous and very authoritative ancient text written by a fourth century monk in Sri Lanka, Buddhaghosa. This describes the Buddha’s path for monks in great detail. Buddhaghosa is famous for being the first to make a distinction between two types of meditation, samatha-bhāvanā, meditation focused on developing concentration by attaining states of jhāna, and vipassanā--bhāvanā, meditation to attain wisdom and liberation. He claimed these were separate and distinct paths.

vitakka: Thought conception. One of the two components of inner speech: vitakka is the arising of thought, which may or may not, lead to vicāra, discursive thinking, or rolling in thought.

yathābhūta: As it is; in accord with reality; in accord with the way things really are.

Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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References

Ajahn Brahm. (2006). Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond. Wisdom Publications. New York.

Ajahn Sujato. (2000). A Swift Pair of Messengers. Antipasti.

Ajahn Sumedho. (1989). Now is the Knowing. Amaravati Publications. Hemel Hempstead, UK.

Ajahn Ṭhānissaro. (1997). One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice. PDF hosted on <https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html> Downloaded 1^st Jan. 2026.

Arbel, Keren. (2016). Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhānas as the Actualization of Insight. Rutledge, London.

Arbel, Keren. (2024) “A summary article of the book Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhānas as the Actualization of Insight,” PDF hosted on AmericanBuddhist.net, downloaded March, 2024. <https://ia802206.us.archive.org/19/items/various-ebt/Keren%20Arbel%20The%20Four%20Jhanas%20as%20the%20Actualization%20of%20Insight.pdf>

Bhikkhu Anālayo. (2003). Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization. Windhorse Publications, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Bhikkhu Anālayo. (2019). Mindfulness of Breathing: A Practice Guide and Translations. Windhorse Publications, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Bhikkhu Bodhi. (2000) Abhidhammattha Sangaha. A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma. Pāli Text, Translation & Explanatory Guide. BPS Paryatti Editions. Onalaska, USA.

Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga. Trans. Bhikkhu Ñyānamoli (1976) The Path of Purification, Shambhala. Berkeley and London.

Goenka, S. N. (2024). Discourse Summaries: Discourses Given by S. N. Goenka in Ten-Day Vipassana Meditation Courses. Pariyatti, Onalaska. USA.

Ledi Sayadaw. (2003). Manual of Insight (Vipassanā Dīpanī) (U Ñāṇa, Trans.). Buddhist Publication Society. Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Ledi Sayadaw. (2003). Manual of Mindfulness of Breathing (Ānāpāna Dīpanī).Buddhist Publication Society. Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Ledi Sayadaw. (2003). Manual of Conditional Relations (Paṭṭhānuddesa Dīpanī).Buddhist Publication Society. Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Mahāsi Sayadaw. (1991). Practical Insight Meditation: Basic and Progressive Stages. (U Pe Thin and Myanaung U Tin Trans). Buddhist Publication Society. Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Mahāsi Sayādaw. (1965) The Progress of Insight (Visuddhiñāṇa-kathā). (Nyanaponika Trans). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Medawi Sayadaw. (1756). Nāma-rūpa-nibbidā Shu-bwe. Burmese Theravāda meditation treatise. Publisher Unknown.

Nyanatiloka. (1972). Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines. Frewin & Co. Columbo, Sri Lanka.

Pa Auk Sayadaw. (2019). Knowing and Seeing (5th rev. ed.). Independently Published. Available by free download from <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qwl-bqy180Foo5kT7_ABpp3uPiv0hEdi/view>

Polk, Grzegorz. (2011). Re-examining Jhāna: Towards a Critical Reconstruction of Early Buddhist Soeriology. UMCS. Lublin, Poland.

Polk, Grzegorz. (2016). How Was Liberating Insight Related to the Development of the Four Jhānas in Early Buddhism? A New Perspective through an Interdisciplinary Approach. Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. Vol. 10. Oxford. UK.

Pranke, Patrick. (2010). On saints and wizards: Ideals of human perfection and power in contemporary Burmese Buddhism. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist StudiesVolume 33 • Number 1–2 • 2010 (2011) pp. 453–488.

Shankman, Richard. (2008). The Experience of Samādhi. An In depth Exploration of Buddhist Meditation. Shambhala, Boston.

U Ba Khin. (1951). What Buddhism Is. A series of three lectures given at the Methodist Church, Signal, Pagoda Pond, Rangoon, Pariyatti Electronic Publication. (https://host.pariyatti.org/treasures/What_Buddhism_Is_Sayagyi_U_Ba_Khin.pdf)

U Ba Khin. (1981). The Essentials of Buddha Dhamma in Meditative Practice. The Wheel Publication No. 231. The Buddhist Publication Society. Kandy, Sri Lanka.

U Chit Tin. (1997). Knowing Anicca and the Way to Nibbāna. Edited by W. Priutt. The International Meditation Centres, U. K. Dhamma Books Series 2, 2nd revised edition.

Wynne, A. (2007). The Origin of Buddhist Meditation. Routledge. London and New York.

Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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In Conclusion

Reading Time: about 2 mins. 350 words.

There is considerable disagreement about what the Buddha taught. Many of these disagreements arose within a few centuries of the Buddha’s death, by which time there appear to have been a variety of different sects that disagreed on details of his teaching. And although the Pāli Canon is the oldest extant teaching, there appear to have been other versions of the Canon, now lost. All of which suggests that we should not be too dogmatic in our views.

As should be very clear by now, one of the most controversial areas of disagreement is jhāna. There is much debate about what jhāna is, and much debate and disagreement about how it should be incorporated into our practice.

Based on my own experience of meditation, I believe that I have something useful to contribute to that debate. Not only have I had quite extensive practical experience, but based on those experiences, I have come to a variety conclusions about jhāna, and how it should be used in vipassanā practice. I now hold quite definite views. I think it is useful to express those.

I am absolutely convinced that, if possible, vipassanā should be practiced while in jhāna. That I do not doubt.

But among the many other views I have expressed, I am aware that some of those are likely to be right, and also aware that some are likely to be wrong. I understand that. But which is right and which is wrong? Readers must decide that for themselves.

In writing about these things, I fear I may have caused offense to some people. That was not my intention. I have no desire to cause offense, nor to criticize anyone, and if any people do feel offended, then I ask their pardon.

To repeat what I have said many times, for me the Buddha’s path is not one of devotion, nor of belief, but is a path of inquiry. We all have to work out our own salvation.

May all beings be successful.

May all beings be liberated.

May all beings be happy.

End of my book: Vipassanā in Jhāna: A Personal Narrative and Practical Guide.

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Thank you for reading Gary Buck’s Substack. Everything here is free. I do not accept donations. You are free to copy or distribute the content, as long as you give credit, and for noncommercial purposes only.

Public comments are turned off. But feel free to message me privately, in confidence, if you wish. And if you find any typos, or mistakes, kindly let me know.

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Chapter 9: Conducting Long Retreats

Reading Time: about 37 mins. 7,400 words.

My Gratitude

Although I have spent almost all my meditation career in one tradition, throughout this book I have tried to keep the discussion as general as possible, for the benefit of meditators from other traditions. However, in this chapter, I wish to address my remarks to my peers in the movement established by Goenkaji, teaching in the U Ba Khin tradition. Before addressing the issue of how I think we should conduct longer retreats, and how we should deal with jhāna arising on vipassanā courses, I would like to say something about my teachers, and my relationship with the organization Goenakji established.

Firstly, I want to fully express my deep gratitude to Goenkaji. It is fifty years since I first sat at his feet, and I am deeply grateful for the gift of Dhamma. At the time, I was living in Varanasi, India, practicing vipassanā in a different tradition—the one established by Mahasi Sayadaw. At that time, Goenkaji came to town, and I took two of his ten-day courses. I immediately felt that his technique of vipassanā, with the focus on observing vedanā (body sensations) was more in line with the Buddha’s path—or at least with what I thought was the Buddha’s path. Vipassanā focused on vedanā is called, no surprise, vedanānupassanā. Since that time, I have continued to practice vedanānupassanā as I was taught. I have never felt any inclination to try anything different or to study other vipassanā traditions. That was over fifty years ago, and thanks to Goenkaji, by following his advice, I have lived a wonderful life. Words cannot express my feelings of gratitude. The truth is: Dhamma works, and he gave it to me.

I was amazed—and still am—at the mettā, the force of unconditional love, that seemed to radiate from his every pore. Everyone felt it. It was wonderful to sit in his presence. For this, I will forever have a deep debt of gratitude. And he asked for nothing in return—not one penny! He did this not just for me, but for a huge number of other fortunate beings.

He dedicated his life to giving the gift of Dhamma to anyone who asked. He was a well-established vipassanā student when he came to India to teach the practice to his mother, who was sick, and who he believed would benefit from the practice. At the end of that first ten-day course, people asked for more and then more. People were in misery; he knew the benefits of the practice he had learned, and he was eager to share that with others. This rapidly took over his life.

When I first met him, five years later, he had already conducted about 100 such courses, traveling to the most obscure corners of India. That is an average of about twenty ten-day courses every year—220 days a year. With travel time, organizing, and support activities, that means he did little else but devote his life to helping others, teaching Dhamma. After a few more years, and many more courses, he established a meditation center, and then, when he found that he himself could not meet the constant worldwide demand, he figured out how to build an organization that could do so on his behalf, using assistant teachers and recordings. Droves of people constantly vied for his time, demanded his attention and sought his advice; rarely was he left alone. I don’t know how he managed all that. He continued this for the rest of his active life. I am sure that he paid a very heavy personal price for all this: it must have come at considerable cost to his family life, to his business activities, and to his own meditation practice. I don’t know how he found time enough to sit quietly, but somehow he did.

Once he had his own center, all of these retreats were completely free of charge, supported by volunteer workers and donations accepted only from old students. He would not accept donations from people who had not completed a ten-day retreat. Everyone who attended a course did so completely free of charge and was served by volunteers who had already completed a ten-day retreat. He told students, “It is through the donation and service of others that you could receive this benefit. Now, having tasted this yourself, if you wish, you may donate to provide the same benefit to others.” There is a purity to this that is wonderful to behold.

Goenkji’s mission was to bring Dhamma to a suffering world. He did this on behalf of his teacher, U Ba Khin. who believed that “the clock of vipassanā has struck.” In other words, U Ba Khin held the traditional belief that there would be a revival of the Buddha’s teaching halfway though the 5,000-year Buddha sāsana (this is the period in which the Buddha’s teaching would persist in the world). This half-way point occurred in the middle of the twentieth century, and U Ba Khin was very eager to teach his technique of vipassanā—the ancient technique of vedanānupassanā, preserved in Burma since ancient times—to give this technique to the world, just at that time when the world would be most ready to receive it. That was U Ba Khin’s mission.

However, Burma was essentially closed, due to a military dictatorship that severely restricted travel in and out of Burma. U Ba Khin was not allowed a passport. He was clearly frustrated by his inability to teach Dhamma abroad, just at the very time that the clock of vipassanā had struck. Perhaps he was even desperate. I say that because during the 1960’s, he made several attempts to persuade some of his foreign ex-students to teach vipassanā in the outside world. Some declined, and some almost certainly were not currently practicing. None of these people were trained as teachers; as far as I am aware, their main qualification was that they had taken vipassanā courses with U Ba Khin.

However four agreed to teach courses. John Coleman taught quite a number of ten-day courses. I sat one in England. He was a very nice chap, who was well liked by the local meditation community. Leon Wright, Robert Hover and Ruth Denison also conducted a number of ten-day courses. I have met students who took courses with all three of them, and it is clear that they undertook their responsibilities with serious intent and did remarkably well considering their relative lack of training. However, it seems to me that this was not how a teacher of U Ba Khin’s prodigious experience would normally select new dhamma teachers, unless he was desperate.

Eventually, considerable success came. His student S. N. Goenaka—a very serious and devoted student, and, as a local Indian businessman, someone who could leave Burma—went to India and taught his first course to his own mother. A lovely detail! (As a side note, the Buddha said that the debt we owe to our parents is so considerable that it can only be repaid by getting them establishing in dhamma.) And by teaching this course, not only did Goenkaj repay his debt to his parents, but also, as many like to think, this was the first time vipassanā had been taught in India, the land of its origin, in long centuries, or even millennia. A very propitious start! The rest is history, as they say.

Goenkaji was amazingly successful in promoting this mission. There are currently over 200 vipassanā meditation centers worldwide built through his efforts. They form a loose association, cooperating by using his recordings along with his instructions. To make this work, he inspired large numbers of people to dedicate their lives to helping spread Dhamma as assistants, teachers, administrators, and workers. The organization continues its work long after he retired and many years since he passed away, and the numbers are still growing. We cannot say exactly how many people have attended his vipassanā retreats, free of charge, but it is not just thousands, nor tens of thousands, nor even hundreds of thousands—it is literally in the millions.

Despite this great achievement, and this wonderful service to humanity, I sometimes hear, or read, criticisms of Goenkaji: of how he conducted his courses, or of things that he said. “He doesn’t understand this,” or “he doesn’t understand that,” or “he did this,” or “he said that” and so forth. Some of these criticisms may be true; perhaps many are. All his life, he remained a layman, a business man, and a public figure. I am sure he got many things wrong, in many ways; how could it be otherwise? But it is easy to sit in a comfortable chair, years later with the benefit of hindsight, and nit-pick about this, and criticize that. The simple truth is that when he saw people suffering, needing help, he simply “rolled up his sleeves and got to work,” helping them as best he knew how, by giving them the meditation technique that had helped him so much. Whatever we think about whatever he did, or whatever he said, we should never forget that few people have worked so hard, with so much sincerity, to the benefit of so many.

But Goenkaji was not U Ba Khin’s only success. The story gets even better. Ten years after Goenkaji started teaching, and about eight years after U Ba Khin’s demise, Daw Mya Thwin, whom we all knew as Mother Sayama, the most widely respected of U Ba Khin students, was able to leave Burma, along with her husband, U Chit Tin. She established a meditation center in the south of England, which she called the International Meditation Center, essentially making it a branch of U Ba Khin’s original International Meditation Center in Rangoon. Like Goenkaji, she explicitly and publicly said that she was teaching the U Ba Khin technique. She later opened a number of other meditation centers world wide. She continued teaching into her eighties, and died in 2017. She trained a number of teachers, world-wide, and they continue to conduct regular ten-day retreats, across the world.

Both Goenkaji and Sayamagyi continued Sayagyi U Ba Khin’s mission for the rest of their lives. And both have left a legacy, an organization that has continued to teach this technique up to the present, and that will surely continue into the future. The ancient technique of vedanānupassanā is all around the world now, in hundreds of meditation centers, in thousands of informal groups of meditators, and in tens of thousands of households. There is now a large global community of people practicing this, thanks to U Ba Khin.

So finally, I want to express my deep gratitude to U Ba Khin for sticking with his mission. I did not meet U Ba Khin, but I did meet a number of his most dedicated students a few years after his death. I attended ten seven-day meditation courses at his meditation center in Rangoon under Mother Sayama’s guidance, surrounded by many other old students of his: U Chit Tin, U Tin Ye, U Ba Po and many others. I also spent time at the new International Meditation Center in England, with Sayama and U Chit Tin, helping them get the place established. As a young vipassanā meditator, it was wonderful to spend time with older, established practitioners. They were always happy to tell us all about “Sayagyi,” as they called U Ba Khin. They all spoke of him with great reverence and the very highest esteem. Of course, one expects students to admire their teacher, but this went far beyond the admiration one would normally expect. They regarded him as a “great being,” a bodhisattva—someone with enormously powerful pāramīs, whose life was of great spiritual significance. I heard many stories of his strict moral discipline; his towering commitment to the Dhamma; his metta; his enormous self-discipline; and his close relationship with a number of monks famous for their meditation success. While holding down demanding, high-level government positions, every day after finishing work, he went to his meditation center and spent the rest of the day and part of the night, working with his students. Mother Sayama told me that he did not normally sleep much; rather, he would lie down in the shrine room and meditate for a few hours, then get up and begin again before the night was done.

Those nearest to him all believed in his mission. But they believed it was far more than just spreading vipassanā during the current revival. They believed that he was sowing seeds and nurturing saplings—seeds of dhamma, saplings of dhamma—in order to prepare for the next Buddha sāsana. They believed that he was the bodhisattva; the next Buddha. In other words, that he was Maitreya (Sanskrit) or Metteyya (Pali), the bodhisattva who would become the next Buddha. I know this because Sayama told us. I was among the very first of Goenkaji’s students who went to Rangoon to study at the International Meditation center. U Ba Khin had died a few years before, and his old students still ran the center, teaching ten-day retreats. They missed their teacher, and clearly felt this was the end of an era. They had no idea what was coming! Little did they realize that this was the start of a flood of eager students.

I arrived with four companions. They were overjoyed to see this new crop of young meditators eager to learn. They treated us with enormous kindness and encouragement. On the last day, Sayama sat us down for a serious conversation. She told us that they knew that Sayagyi U Ba Khin would be the next Buddha, and they were working to help. Hearing this from someone famous for high levels of spiritual development, someone said to have extraordinary powers of mind, was surely a momentous thing. Later I asked Goenkaji, in a private interview, whether he also held the same belief about U Ba Khin, namely that he would be the next Buddha, and Goenkaji simply said “yes” he did.

I don’t know how common the knowledge is of this. Probably others know, but I have never heard this discussed publicly. At the time, I regarded this as a confidence, and in the decades since, I don’t think I have ever disclosed this to anyone. I have occasionally heard hints and suggestive remarks from old students close to Goenkaji or Sayamagyi, which is why I assume that others do know. However, this certainly explains much about both Goenkaji and Sayamagyi; their enormous devotion for their teacher, and their public claims that they are carrying out his mission. And they are clearly working for that end; not only to teach vipassanā as part of this current global revival, but also to plant seeds and nurture saplings, in preparation for the next Buddha sāsana.

Of course, we might be inclined to dismiss such beliefs, but I think they should be taken very seriously. They are a valid and genuine measure of the very high esteem in which U Ba Khin was held by those who knew him best. This is without doubt the highest tribute that one vipassanā meditator could pay to another. And who knows; they could be right? Just at the time U Ba Khin was successful in getting his technique out of Burma, at that very same time, there were hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the world, eagerly ready and waiting. Was this a coincidence, perhaps? Or was it something else? Where there powerful unknown forces at work? Could we be the saplings that were being nurtured? Could we be part of such momentous cosmic events as the arising of a Buddha? What heady thoughts indeed! My trained, social-science-research mind insists on evidence, and spurns blind belief. But somewhere, at the very core of my being, there resides the idea that we will all meet again, in the next Buddha sāsana; where we will help as best we can, and make an end of suffering ourselves. A beautiful thought. A lovely story. And who knows, my dear reader; since you are certainly part of this wonderful dhamma revival, this might already be your story too. And if it is not your story yet, you can make it so. The technique is there.

Well, that is all very fine and wonderful, but it is only speculation. What is certain is that I would not have lived the wonderful life I have lived, without U Ba Khin’s successful mission to bring this vipassanā practice out of Burma and into the wider world. I got it because of his commitment and determination. It is thanks to his efforts that so many people have been introduced to the Buddha’s path. Somehow, he knew it could happen, and so he helped make it happen. Truly, a remarkable man. Of course, lots of people have played important roles in helping to bring about the recent global vipassanā movement—the revival predicted long ago—but U Ba Khin’s role has been colossal.

U Ba Khin, Goenkaji and Sayamagyi were my teachers. All three had such compassion for the suffering of others that they devoted their lives to teaching Dhamma, for the welfare of others. They taught the Buddha’s path as they believed it, and they taught it as best they knew how. So many of us have benefited. Great beings, indeed! I am very deeply grateful. Very deeply grateful indeed.

The Organization

I should begin by making it clear that I have no position within the organization Goenkaji created, except as a student who periodically attends vipassanā retreats. I have lost count of how many retreats I have sat over my life. Over the years, I have also served at meditation centers in a number of countries and volunteered time on committees, doing administrative work, and so on. I have made donations, too, and I still do.

I was in India and Burma in the 1970s while Goenkaji was traveling around India establishing his mission, and Western students were also traveling to Burma to study with Mother Sayama. The people I associated with at that time were those who helped Goenkaji from the earliest days, many of whom later dedicated their lives to assisting him in his mission. Many are my lifelong friends. These are now the senior and most respected teachers in the organization.

At one time, I considered whether I should also devote myself to supporting Goenkaji in his mission. But I do not fit well into such organizations. I do not like how organizations often bring out the worst in people. Some compete for positions within the organization; many become invested in their status, and work hard to protect and enhance that status; some come to feel that it is more important to protect the organization than to promote its mission; and there always seem to be people pushing their way to the teacher’s side or grabbing the prime location. Many develop inflated egos and forget that the purpose of our practice is to serve others while eradicating our ego. Something like this happens in many organizations, of course, but I find it hard to accept this in an organization dedicated to the practice of Dhamma.

However, there is also another, more important reason why I have kept my distance. People naturally tend to become very attached to their teacher, to the organization, and to the technique they practice. Sensible ideas such as “my teacher is wonderful” or “this technique has made my life so much better” tend to become “my teacher is right in all things; my teacher is fully enlightened;” or “my technique is the correct one, and others are wrong.” People tend to forget that the Buddha was famous for upāya-kosalla, in English “skillful means;” namely the ability to modify and adapt his teaching depending on the capacities and level of understanding of the recipient. To one person, he taught one practice, and to another, he taught another. There is no such thing—nor was there ever such a thing—as a one-size-fits-all method of teaching or practicing Dhamma! The technique Goenkaji taught us, vedanānupassanā, has proven to work very well for many people; it is a wonderful practice, but it is not the only way to tread the Buddha’s path.

In the natural course of things, sadly, many people tend to become devotees, and often blind devotees. As a result, there develops this insistence that there is just one way to do vipassanā, and it is our way. People tend to regard U Ba Khin—and then Goenkaji, who followed him—as enlightened beings whose every word is truth incarnate and must not be questioned. So when they have questions, they go to their teacher, not to the Buddha. Perhaps this attitude reassures students that they are on the “right” path and motivates them to work harder, but to me this attitude is not compatible with the Buddha’s path. The Buddha taught a path of inquiry, not a path of devotion. And so I have kept my distance.

However, the organization provides opportunities for meditation across a very wide range of locations to a huge number of people; introducing new people to the Dhamma, and helping older practitioners meditate in ideal conditions. That is wonderful. And surely, this can only be maintained with a strong insistence on conformity. Everything is carefully scripted and laid out, and people follow the instructions. It seems to me that this is necessary to make it work; but there is a cost, and that cost is strong pressure to conform. Perhaps one cannot have the one without the other. The problem with conformity, though, is that it tends to undermine the spirit of inquiry, which lies at the heart of the Buddha’s path. As we progress, we learn more; as we learn more, we practice better; and as we practice better, we progress further.

So, to be clear, I have never taught meditation to anyone. When I talk about how meditation is taught in Goenkaji’s system, I am speaking from a student’s perspective, as an outsider looking in. Although the organization is far from perfect, it does a great deal of good in this world, and many find it a wonderful vehicle for leading a life of morality and service. So even though I personally find many aspects uncomfortable, I am fully supportive of the organization, deeply committed to its mission, and hopeful for its continued success over the centuries to come. I regard the people who run the organization as colleagues in Dhamma, and when I refer to “my peers” in this context, I am referring to this group of long-term meditators, many of whom now hold senior positions in Goenkaji’s organization.

I have explained my feelings about Goenkaji and the organization he created because, when it comes to the topic of how I think long retreats should be conducted and how we should practice, I have some things to say and some suggestions to make.

Guidance on Long Retreats

Firstly, I should say something that seems obvious to me but may not be obvious to others. Based on my own experience and on conversations with my peers, it seems clear to me that we are teaching techniques we do not fully understand. I followed the instructions given to me by my teachers—those from two generations: not only Goenkaji himself as well as other teachers from his generation, but also teachers from the next generation whom they appointed. They all gave me essentially the same instructions. The result was that I encountered powerful states of altered consciousness that I did not understand—states of mind that I had been told explicitly could not arise if I practiced as instructed. I had no idea how to deal with these states, no support, and no possibility of receiving the guidance I felt I needed. To me, this indicates a need for a little humility among both teachers and students alike.

Long retreats are led by old students, experienced meditators using the instructions and recordings provided by Goenkaji. There is considerable demand for such courses, and finding senior meditators with the time to conduct them is a challenge. It is probably true to say that most of those who lead such retreats have never had jhāna experience themselves. A minority will have experienced jhāna, no doubt, but few of those will have worked to develop it and incorporate it into their regular practice. Of course, it is likely that there is a small handful who do use jhāna in their practice, although I have never heard this admitted publicly. Most of those leading these longer courses are therefore not in a position to offer good advice about jhāna.

Hence, there is a serious lack of support for advanced meditators. As I discussed in Chapter One, I know of two cases in which senior teachers from Burma—students of U Ba Khin—refused to discuss the issue when approached by students who had experienced jhāna and were seeking help. One case was my own, mentioned earlier, when I asked for advice from one of the teachers at the International Meditation Center in Burma, U Ba Khin’s center. The other involved an old student who asked Goenkaji himself, who also refused to discuss the issue. At the time I was taking these long courses, I sought advice in private meetings with two of the most senior current teachers, and they had no advice to offer. In fact, both complained that they themselves had been frustrated when they had unsuccessfully sought help on this very issue. Many years later, I sent an early draft of my narrative, describing how jhāna arose unexpectedly, to five teachers who currently lead long retreats, describing my experiences of jhāna. The responses varied, but not one offered any advice or even expressed sympathy for my situation. Their response amounted to little more than an awkward silence.

While the inability to obtain advice was frustrating at the time, no harm was done. I am fairly widely read in the Buddhist literature and had a reasonably good understanding of what was happening. But what of other students who might attain these altered states of consciousness and not understand what was happening, or not know how to deal with them? Some might become confused or fearful. Others might believe they had attained enlightenment, while still others might fear they were losing their minds. I have read accounts of meditators in other religious traditions who experienced jhāna-like states and believed they were communicating with God, or had been visited by the Holy Ghost, or got union with Atman. Who knows? People are capable of imagining all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Leaving people to face such experiences and figure them out for themselves seems to me both irresponsible and unkind, and could potentially lead to disastrous consequences.

There is another reason why we should speak to students about this. When a retreat begins, participants are asked to surrender to the teacher and to the technique. The unspoken message is, “Trust us—we will take care of you. Just follow the instructions, and you will be fine.” This is a promise that should be taken seriously. It is deeply disconcerting and very disorienting to unexpectedly encounter altered states of consciousness—states that participants have been told, either explicitly or implicitly, could not occur. It seems to me that failing to warn them constitutes a breach of trust. When this happened to me, I felt deceived by those I had trusted. They had told me things which I accepted and believed, things on which I had based my practice, which later turned out to be untrue. This left me shocked and bewildered. Feelings of resentment were far stronger and persisted much longer than I care to admit. There is no need to put trusting students through such experiences.

I am making this point strongly because, when I discussed jhāna with one of my peers and suggested that we need to prepare students for its possibility and provide support if it arises, he replied that we do not need to address this at all. “The Dhamma will take care of them,” was essentially what he said. This was a resident teacher at an established meditation center, teaching regular courses. I find this attitude deeply troubling. Students come to our courses to learn the practical application of the Buddha’s teaching. First, we teach them ānāpāna. We then carefully guide them through the process and help them learn how to practice it. Next, we teach them vedanānupassanā, meditation on sensations, again offering explanations, help and support. Later, in the course of their practice, some will enter jhāna and experience a new mode of consciousness. Why do we abandon them at this point and leave them to figure it out for themselves? I simply cannot understand such an attitude.

As noted earlier, the Buddha recommended that all meditators seek what he called a kalyāṇa-mitta, a good friend who can provide support and guidance in meditation. We all need such a good friend. Some basic guidance would have helped me greatly; I would certainly have had a more productive and less stressful experience. Surely this would be true for others as well. On long courses, it seems to me that the organization must assume this role of good friend—helping meditators understand what is happening and guiding them through these experiences.

Silence on this issue is not only potentially disastrous for students; it could also place the entire organization at risk. In the United States, where I live, people are quick to litigate when things go wrong, or when they feel they were mistreated, and settlements can be substantial. Failing to warn students of the possibility of altered states of consciousness could be seen as an irresponsible lack of care, with serious consequences for the organization. There are sound practical and legal reasons to warn those undertaking long retreats that they may encounter such states. After all, these experiences do occur. At the very least, the organization must protect itself from the consequences of things going wrong and from accusations of negligence.

This means that we need to talk to students on long courses about the possibility of jhāna arising and provide them with simple instructions about what to do if it does. Teachers leading long courses should prepare some basic guidance in case they are asked about this, as sometimes happens. Not only is this morally and legally necessary, but it is also a kind and considerate thing to do.

Perhaps the best time to prepare students is when the rules and procedures are explained at the start of a retreat. We can warn participants that such states may arise and explain that all a student needs to do is continue practicing as before, following the same instructions. They should be encouraged to take advantage of the strong concentration while remaining equanimous toward pleasant sensations. This need not be a major issue—“just keep calm and carry on” is the appropriate message. We might also remind them that craving for these states is unhelpful, since they arise naturally as concentration deepens. Such public guidance can and should be given to all students attending long retreats, especially those taking their first long retreat. Teachers leading these courses should prepare themselves for this, and reflect on the guidance they would offer to students who raise the topic in private interviews.

In the interest of fairness and accuracy, I should acknowledge that some people believe I am wrong in claiming that the organization fails to provide adequate support regarding jhāna. They suggest that guidance is available in Goenkaji’s discourses. I respectfully disagree, based on my own attempts to use those discourses as a guide. On my first long course, I listened to the twenty-day supportive discourse given by Goenkaji, paying particular attention to any advice on how to deal with jhāna. I heard nothing helpful. On the following course, a thirty-day retreat, I listened attentively to the discourses, again with particular interest in what he had to say about jhāna. Once more, I found nothing helpful.

I must say that Goenkaji’s thirty-day discourses were a great disappointment to me. The first time I heard them, they seemed like a stream of consciousness rather than a carefully structured discourse. He spoke at some length about jhāna, but his presentation appeared closely aligned with the standard Theravāda commentarial tradition. I thought his descriptions were stilted and formulaic. He characterized jhānas as very deep “absorption samādhis,” implying states in which one becomes lost. I thought he spoke as though jhāna were irrelevant to the modern vipassanā students he was addressing, as though it lay far beyond the reach of those sitting before him. What he described in his discourses bore little resemblance to what I was experiencing daily sitting in my cell. More importantly, I heard nothing that amounted to guidance on how a student should respond if jhāna arose: nothing about whether, or how, to integrate it into practice; nothing about its implications, benefits, or dangers; and no reference to what the Buddha himself taught on the subject. There was no help at all.

It seemed clear to me that Goenkaji had no personal experience of jhāna. Of course, I know nothing of his private practice, and this is necessarily speculative. But the only explanation that makes sense to me—given the discrepancy between what he described and what I was experiencing—is that when speaking about jhāna, he was speaking from what he had read or heard, rather than speaking from his own direct experience.

Some may feel that I am being disrespectful or ungrateful in saying this, but I do not believe that is the case. Everyone has limits to their understanding, and Goenkaji was no exception. Acknowledging this does not detract from his great achievements.

When I argue that we have both an ethical and a legal responsibility to address the topic of jhāna and prepare students for its possible occurrence, I am speaking specifically about long retreats, where strong meditators practice intensively for extended periods. Jhāna is quite likely to arise under such conditions. Ten-day courses, however, are very different. They allow much less time for the development of concentration, involve less experienced meditators, and offer less ideal conditions. Of course, jhāna can arise on ten-day courses—especially for well-established meditators, as I know from experience—but it is surely rare among new students. Perhaps assistant teachers should be made aware of this possibility and trained in how to respond if it occurs. Beyond that, however, I see no need to change anything. These courses are carefully designed to introduce laypeople to meditation over a short period, and they work extremely well.

The discourses, in particular, are wonderful. Personally, I think Goenkaji’s ten-day discourses are absolutely brilliant (Goenka, 2024). They provide a comprehensive summary of the Buddha’s teaching in a non-sectarian form accessible to people from any religious background. They align beautifully with the experiences of new students on their first course. They are humorous, easy to listen to, and clearly related to everyday life. Their structure reflects a great deal of thought and careful planning. In addition, Goenkaji was a very charismatic speaker. Everyone loves these discourses. They are a work of genius, inspiring countless people to walk the Buddha’s path. Goenkaji understood how to communicate his message effectively, and he did so with remarkable skill.

Challenging the Taboo

There is another important step we must take apart from preparing meditators on long courses for the possibility of jhāna arising, and offering them guidance. We need to bring the entire topic of jhāna out into the open. This conspiracy of silence—this refusal to discuss the topic, this taboo against open discussion of what the Buddha taught—must end. We need honest and open discussion among the leaders of the vipassanā community.

This is a delicate matter, especially since many leaders in the vipassanā community will not have experienced jhāna themselves, and among those who have experienced it, some will have deliberately avoided developing it. For some, acknowledging this may be embarrassing, particularly if their ego is invested in their role as meditation teachers. But this is a path of truth, and a measure of humility has never harmed anyone.

Opinions will no doubt differ, but I believe that people within the community of vipassanā meditators should be encouraged to talk about jhāna and ask questions. Somehow, the taboo against discussing jhāna must end. That is the central purpose of my writing. My hope is to place the topic squarely on the table and initiate discussion among vipassanā meditators. Those who have encountered jhāna should be encouraged to speak openly and share their experiences, especially those who experience it regularly and have developed ways of working skillfully with these states. Open discussion can only be beneficial. Meditators can hear different perspectives and make their own informed decisions about how to manage their practice. Over time, a shared understanding is likely to emerge. As collective experience grows, it should become increasingly clear how best to prepare students at the start of long courses.

My own conviction, however, is that we should do far more. I believe we should actively encourage meditators to work diligently to strengthen their concentration and attain jhāna if they can. There are two main reasons for this.

First, we should encourage jhāna because the Buddha himself recommended it. It is explicitly included in the Noble Eightfold Path as sammā-samādhi (right concentration). The Buddha frequently described jhāna as the path to awakening, repeatedly emphasized its benefits, and consistently encouraged its cultivation. We should therefore recommend the practice of jhāna, and explain its value to students, simply because it is an essential element of the path taught by the Buddha.

However, some may feel that this is Goenkaji’s tradition and that we should practice strictly in the manner he taught. Since he did not explicitly teach jhāna, they may argue that we should not cultivate it. I believe this is a fundamental error—and one that runs counter to Goenkaji’s own intentions. He had a very deep devotion to the Buddha. His extensive chanting, which formed a central part of his personal practice, was essentially nothing more than expressing gratitude, devotion and reverence for the Buddha and his path. He believed fervently that the Buddha’s path leads to the end of suffering, and this conviction underpinned his entire life’s work. At the beginning of every course, he insisted that students take refuge in the Buddha, the Noble Eightfold Path, and those who have walked that path. He never asked anyone to take refuge in U Ba Khin, and certainly never in Goenkaji himself. We take refuge in the Buddha. This means that when questions arise about our practice or about the path, the Buddha’s teaching must be our primary reference point. And on this matter, the Buddha is unequivocal: jhāna is an essential step on the path, and vipassanā should be practiced while in jhāna whenever possible.

Second, we should encourage jhāna for the same reason the Buddha recommended jhāna. The mind in jhāna—the refined consciousness of the Fine-Material Sphere that arises with deep concentration—is vastly more powerful than the restless, flickering “monkey mind” that most of us experience at the outset of practice. Consciousness in jhāna supports far deeper and more effective meditation. It also gives practitioners a direct taste of peace and purity, greatly increasing confidence, interest, and commitment to the path. It is a genuinely transformative step on the journey toward liberation. Anyone who doubts this should try it for themselves. Jhāna makes vipassanā far more powerful. If our fundamental aim is to help suffering beings move toward the end of suffering, then encouraging jhāna is not optional—it is essential.

I understand that these ideas may be unsettling for some, particularly those with strong devotion to Goenkaji. But Goenkaji has passed away, just as earlier teachers did, and the responsibility has passed to a new generation, who will in turn pass it on to the next. As we practice, we learn; and as we learn, our understanding deepens. U Ba Khin and Goenkaji provided an extraordinary service, and we should be profoundly grateful to them for bringing Dhamma to the world. Countless people have benefited. Goenkaji, in his wisdom, also established an organizational structure that allows lay practitioners to undertake much longer retreats. It is entirely natural—and necessary—that we adjust our approach to accommodate the new realities that arise from these opportunities.

As more and more meditators undertake longer retreats, it seems inevitable that increasing numbers will naturally attain jhāna. It is reasonable to suppose that if I had not raised this issue, someone else eventually would have. As we gain deeper understanding of the practices we teach, it is only natural that our procedures will evolve in response to new situations. This is not disrespectful to Goenkaji. During his lifetime, he himself adapted how he taught meditation and how he managed his centers. For example, U Chit Tin tells us that on his ten-day courses, U Ba Khin taught ānāpāna for five days before introducing students to vipassanā (U Chit Tin, 1997). Teaching in India, Goenkaji introduced vipassanā on day four. I don’t know why Goenkaji made that change, but no doubt he had a good reason. His successors should be prepared to show the same flexibility in dealing with new situations.

An Ancient Tradition

Finally, I want to say one more thing. Many meditators believe we are practicing Goenkaji’s technique. However, I believe that it is a profound misconception to think that this is Goenkaji’s technique. Of course, we are practicing a technique he brought to us from Burma, and for that, we are surely very grateful. But what Goenkaji passed on to us was not his own technique, it was taught to him by someone else, namely U Ba Khin; but it wasn’t U Ba Khin’s technique, either. It is an ancient technique called vedanānupassanā. We can trace this same technique back through Ledi Sayadaw, then through the writings of Medawi Sayadaw in the 1700’s, and further back to the time of the Buddha. The instructions for practicing vipassanā given by U Ba Khin, Ledi Sayadaw and Medawi Sayadaw are essentially the same as those given by the Buddha over two thousand years earlier. The only difference is on the issue of jhāna. Medawi challenged the idea that one needs to attain jhāna before practicing vipassanā. He seems to have done this in order to teach vipassanā to the laity, outside the saṅgha, to enable them to get a taste of vipassanā with the limited time they would have available. This suggests to me that at the time Medawi wrote his meditation manuals, within the Burmese saṅgha, vipassanā was taught in the same manner as the Buddha did, as described in the suttas. That is, first attain jhāna, then practice vipassanā, or at the least, use your vipassanā as the vehicle to attain jhāna, and then practice both together.

Of course, we do not know what happened during the two thousand years between the time of the Buddha and the time of Medawi Sayadaw, but somehow the technique of vipassanā was preserved within the Burmese saṅgha. Over this period, perhaps it was preserved in an uninterupted line of teachers; or perhaps it died out, and was re-invented by someone based on the Buddha’s words. We do not know how, but somehow it survived.

In his ten-day discourses, Goenkaji expresses the belief that the practice he teaches has been handed down from teacher to student, in an uninterrupted line, since the Buddha’s teaching was brought to Burma, at the time of Asoka the Great, in the third century BCE. I have also heard this same belief expressed by other students of U Ba Khin, while studying at his meditation center in Rangoon and in England. This suggests to me the likelihood that, along with the practice itself, this idea of the continuity of the tradition since ancient times has been passed down over generations of teachers. For many years, I did not regard this belief as a historical fact, but rather as an expression of devotion, or as a way to encourage students by telling them how special they are as inheritors of this long tradition. However, it now seems obvious to me that there is, indeed, a long line of teachers from ancient times to the modern era.

Whatever the details, we are certainly the inheritors of a 2,500-year-old tradition. And every one of this long line of teachers is deserving of our respect and gratitude in exactly the same manner as Goenkaji, or U Ba Khin. All these teachers kept the basic technique “in its purity” as Goenkaji is want to say. Of course, teachers will surely have modified their presentation to take account of their own particular circumstances, as did all the teacher we know—Ledi Sayadaw, Saya Thetji, Sayaji U Ba Khin, Mother Sayama and Goenkaj himself. And no doubt some had more experience, or a deeper understanding than others. But they all preserved the same essential practice we do today, since what we have now is essentially the same as what the Buddha taught in the suttas. To me, this is nothing short of a miracle. It is difficult for me to think about this without intense feelings of humility and gratitude.

The only significant change we know of seems to be that made by Medawi Sayadaw; namely the teaching that vipassanā can be practiced without first attaining jhāna. Or at least started without first attaining jhāna. Perhaps other teachers, at other times, long ago, may have done the same; we do not know. But it seems reasonable to assume that the vast majority of these historical vipassanā teachers, over the centuries, taught that jhāna is an essential part of vipassanā, and that ideally, vipassanā should be practiced while in jhāna, just as the Buddha taught.

So Goenkaji, in his wisdom, has brought the vipassanā movement back full circle. By establishing longer retreats for lay practitioners, he gave us back the opportunity to attain jhāna, and actually practice vipassanā in the manner the Buddha taught—while in full jhāna. This is simply a return to what the Buddha taught, the same teaching that has been taught by the vast majority of this long line of vipassanā teachers.

Vipassanā in jhāna is what the Buddha recommended, and now that we have the wonderful opportunity provided by Goenkaji, that is what we should practice.

End of Chapter 9

Next chapter:

In Conclusion

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Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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Chapter Eight

Reading Time: about 9 mins. 1,750 words.

A Summary of All the Experts

From what the Buddha and the various meditation teachers and scholars have said on this topic, a number of themes stand out.

First, there seems to be little doubt about what the Buddha actually taught. His advice is repeated in many places in the suttas, and he consistently and repeatedly taught that we should attain jhāna and then practice vipassanā. This description of how to practice vipassanā is very standard, and is repeated many times in the Sutta Piṭaka. First, enter jhāna, then, while in the jhāna, observe the five aggregates that compose the totality of a human being, namely material form (rupa), consciousness (viññāṇa), cognition (saññā), feelings (vedanā) and reactions (saṅkhāra). While objectively observing these phenomena, the meditator also knows their nature, the three universal characteristics of impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), and non-self (anattā). But beyond the general statements, the Buddha explicitly states that this applies to vedanānupassanā, which is vipassanā which takes vedanā, sensations, as its main object of attention, as we do, in the U Ba Khin tradition.

And not only is this found in the Pāli Canon, but as Ajahn Brahm observes in his interview with Shankman, (Shankman, 2008) that this advice—to develop jhāna first and then practice vipassanā in jhāna—is also commonly found in the ancient Chinese translations of other early Buddhist Suttas. This cross validates what we see in the Pāli Canon. So there can little doubt about what the Buddha taught.

Simply put, the Buddha is telling us that vipassanā should be practiced while in jhāna, and that includes vedanānupassanā. There seems to be no room for doubt. I find it very reassuring that the conclusion I reached on this issue, based on my own personal practice, is in agreement with what the Buddha taught. This gives me enormous confidence to make the recommendation I make.

Why Buddhaghosa said something completely different from the Buddha on this topic is beyond my understanding. His ideas on meditation do not seem to come from the suttas themselves, but from somewhere else. Perhaps by then, meditation had already fallen out of practice in India and Sri Lanaka, so there was no one left who knew how it should be done. The ancient chronicle of Sri Lanka, the Mahavamsa, tells us that before becoming a Buddhist monk, Buddhaghosa was well-trained in the Vedic tradition. He may have brought in ideas from non-Buddhist, Indian meditative traditions, to fill in the gaps.

Or alternatively, his ideas may have come from another ancient meditation text, The Vimuttimagga (The Path of Freedom), traditionally attributed to an arahant called Upatissa, who lived in the first or second century of the common era. This was probably written in India and was brought to Sri Lanka at a later date. The Visuddhimagga bears a striking similarity to the Vimuttimagga, both in form and in content, suggesting the older text had a considerable influence on Buddhaghosa’s writing. Perhaps what he wrote was the common standard belief in India or Sri Lanka at the time.

Wherever his ideas came from, I think it is fair to say that most modern scholars believe that Buddhaghosa basically summed up the common view, which was already well established in this period, not merely within the Theravāda school but also, so I am told, in the Mahāyāna as well.

However, whatever the origin of his ideas, given the enormous impact these ideas have had over the centuries, I cannot help feeling that Buddhaghosa’s impact on Buddhist meditation has been very detrimental.

To me, it feels as though the Buddha’s teaching on how to practice vipassanā was largely lost over fifteen hundred years ago in India and Sri Lanka, and was replaced by something not taught by the Buddha. However, in Burma, it seems that the ancient ways, the way of the Buddha, survived. Thanks to the monks of Burma, it seems, we are now beginning to rediscover what the Buddha actually taught about meditation. In this sense, I think of the modern vipassanā movement as an attempt to return to the Buddha’s teachings and make them part of our everyday life.

When we turn to this modern revival, it appears to have begun in the eighteenth century with Medawi Sayadaw and to have gained momentum ever since. We can see a revival of meditation generally, along with a serious effort to spread the Buddha’s teaching to the laity.

It seems that at the time of Medawi Sayadaw, in the eighteenth century, within the Burmese Saṅgha, the traditional understanding of the Buddha’s teaching—namely, that jhāna is an integral part of the path and should be practiced along with vipassanā, preferably before starting vipassanā—had been preserved. Otherwise he would not have argued so strongly against the belief that you needed to get jhāna before starting vipassanā; and neither would he have insisted so strongly that vipassanā can be practiced without jhāna. However, whether many monks were practicing meditation at that time is unclear, but given the widespread belief that it was no longer possible to attain final liberation, it is quite possible that meditation was not practiced very widely at all.

It is also possible that the belief that one must attain jhāna before beginning vipassanā acted as a strong deterrent to practice, which would explain why Medawi Sayadaw, and later teachers, insisted that jhāna was not necessary in order to begin practicing vipassanā. Although he was clear that jhāna was helpful and of great benefit, nevertheless Medawi insisted that one could start without it. No doubt this idea was encouraging to members of the Saṅgha, but it must have been particularly encouraging to the laity, who did not have the time necessary to attain high levels of concentration. For them, it was “dry vipassanā” or nothing.

After Medawi Sayadaw, emphasis on the benefits of jhāna appears to have gradually decreased, at least in traditions more oriented toward lay practitioners. Mahasi Sayadaw, while acknowledging that jhāna can be helpful, maintained that it is not required for vipassanā and seems to have somewhat discouraged its practice, at least among the laity. U Ba Khin does not explicitly address this question in his writing. What he says is that the better the concentration, the better the vipassanā, without actually specifying how much is ideal. People can take this to mean what they want it to mean, but I take it literally: the stronger I can make my concentration, the stronger my vipassanā will be. Neither Goenkaji nor Mother Sayāma, who both focused on teaching the laity, placed any emphasis on jhāna at all. They seemed to have discouraged it, or at least ignored it.

I think we can see a clear tendency to de-emphasize jhāna by teachers who are focusing more on promoting vipassanā to the laity. And conversely, a clear tendency to emphasize jhāna more among those focusing on promoting vipassanā within the saṅgha. Examination of the Shankman’s (2008) interviews with current meditation teachers re-enforces this view. The lay teachers tend to focus more on mindfulness, where the monks tend to focus more on jhāna.

If I had to summarize the advice I take from this review, I would say that jhāna is an integral part of the Buddha’s path, that it is a necessary prerequisite for enlightenment, and that ideally it should be combined with vipassanā into one unified practice. However, jhāna is not necessary in order to begin vipassanā, and at least for the laity, it may be better, or perhaps more productive, to spend time practicing vipassanā with momentary concentration (khaṇika samādhi) rather than striving to attain jhāna.

Although I do think this is the most useful summary, I think it is important to note that there are some scholar monks who disagree strongly with this view, and maintain that jhāna is a necessary and integral part of vipassanā itself, and hence strongly criticize the dry vipassanā movement as misrepresenting the Buddha’s path. These monks argue strongly that we should go back to the Buddha’s teaching, as found in the four nikāyas of the Sutta Piṭaka, and work to develop both jhāna and vipassanā together from the beginning.

As for the most useful practical advice for current meditators, this review suggests that although we may start vipassanā without jhāna, eventually, if we want to make good progress, we have to attain jhāna. So if we have the chance, we should work for it. Work hard, if possible attain jhāna, and then decide for yourself. If jhāna leads to obvious benefits, then enjoy them; if not, return to your previous way of practice. And if you don’t get jhāna, don’t worry. It is along path. You will get there eventually. Just keep building your mindfulness and concentration.

So this brings us back full circle to the issue of cross-validation, which was the original rationale for examining the teachings of the Buddha and other teachers and scholars. Does the review of these experts cross validate the advice I have offered in other chapters? I think the answer is two-fold: “yes, they do” and “probably.” Let me explain.

Regarding my basic, core insight, namely that we should practice vipassanā while in jhāna, the answer is a clear “yes,” the review does validate my view on this. The most authoritative source, the Buddha himself, clearly says so; he teaches that this insight applies to vipassanā generally, and vedanānupassanā specifically. This interpretation is supported by many other teachers and scholars. All vipassanā meditators can believe this with confidence—absolute confidence.

But as for the many other statements I have made, such as the nature of jhāna, advice on how to attain it, and what benefits it brings, etc. the situation is not so simple. My assertions go far beyond what we find in the literature, so I cannot claim that these assertions are all validated. However, they are in general agreement with, and are coherent with what these experts say, and while I could be wrong on many details—I probably am—this review of the experts should, at the very least, give readers enough confidence in my practical advice to give it a try.

And if they do, I can see no downside to building concentration through increased effort, whether they get jhāna or not.

In the Buddha’s words, “ehipassiko”—come and see for yourself. I believe that those who do see for themselves—namely those who attain jhāna and then practice vipassanā while in that jhāna—will come to understand that the Buddha taught vipassanā and jhāna as two aspects of a single practice, both of which must be developed. The evidence is overwhelming, and I no longer have the slightest doubt about this.

End of Chapter 8

Next chapter:

Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

Previous chapter:

Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

Reading Time: about 15 mins. 2,900 words.

As should be clear by now, the topic of jhāna is controversial, and it is of obvious interest to scholars as well as practitioners. And just as there is disagreement between the historical meditation teachers reviewed above, there is also disagreement between various scholars who address the topic. However, it is not my intention to review the many complex arguments for and against in this debate. Since I am already convinced that vipassanā can be practiced while in jhāna, my aim here is to review those scholars who provide support for my view.

In my mind, I separate these scholars into two groups: firstly, scholar monks, who are not only scholars, but presumably are also active meditators following the Buddha’s path, and hence I assume their motivation for study is to support their practice; secondly, there are the western scholars, historians, philosophers, linguists and the like, who presumably approach this topic from a purely academic perspective. As a result I will review these two groups separately, starting with scholar monks, followed by the academics.

Ajahn Ṭhānissaro (1949-present)

Ajahn Ṭhānissaro is a well-know monk from the Thai tradition. He has written extensively on Buddhism and Buddhist meditation, and has translated many suttas from the Pāli Canon. His position on the issue of jhāna and vipassanā is very clear. He completely rejects the teachings of Buddhaghosa on Buddhist meditation as found in the Visuddhimagga on the grounds that they do not represent the teachings of the Buddha, as found in the Pāli Canon. He is particularly critical of the distinction that Buddhaghosa makes between samatha and vipassanā.

He notes that the suttas rarely make use of the term vipassanā, in sharp contrast to the frequent use of the term jhāna, and that when the suttas depict the Buddha telling his disciples to go meditate, “they never quote him as saying ‘go do vipassanā,’ but always ‘go do jhāna.’” And in the few instances when they do mention vipassanā, “they almost always pair it with samatha—not as two alternative methods, but as two qualities of mind... that should be developed together.” He quotes (AN 10.71) to illustrate that those who assembled the Pāli discourses believed that “samatha, jhāna and vipassanā were all part of a single path.” (Ṭhānissaro, 1997).

Ajahn Ṭhānissaro teaches that both samatha and vipassanā have to be cultivated in a balanced manner, just as though they were yoked side to side. Ṭhānissaro claims that in AN 4.94, the Buddha explains that “if samatha precedes vipassanā—or vipassanā, samatha—ones practice is in a state of imbalance and needs to be rectified.” He further says,

It is obvious that samatha and vipassanā are not separate paths of practice, but instead are complementary ways of relating to the present moment: samatha provides a sense of ease in the present; vipassanā a clear-eyed view of events as they actually occur, in and of themselves. It is also obvious that the two qualities need to function together in mastering jhāna. (Ṭhānissaro, 1997)

Ṭhānissaro then provides a detailed explanation of how these work together, quoting a variety of suttas from the nikāyas. He concludes by claiming that vipassanā is not actually a meditation technique, but rather is “a quality of mind—the ability to see events clearly in the present moment.”

He thus concludes that modern dry-insight (that is, vipassanā-only) approaches to meditation stem from later developments in the commentarial tradition and are not faithful to the earliest Buddhist teachings, insofar as they downplay the importance of concentration.

In summary, he is saying that jhāna is very important and provides a stable platform for the investigation of bodily sensations, thoughts, and mental states, in order to see impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and non-self (anattā). He says that when the mind is in jhāna, it can observe subtler aspects of experience that are normally drowned out by distraction or agitation. He describes this as using jhāna like a microscope for vipassanā: the steadiness of the mind allows for more precise insight into the changing nature of phenomena.

Ajahn Sujato (1966—present)

Another scholar from the Thai Forest Tradition who has argued this position very effectively—at least for me—is Ajahn Sujato. In his essay A Swift Pair of Messengers (Ajahn Sujato, 2000), he examines the oldest texts in the Pāli Canon, namely the four nikāyas that form the first four collections of the Sutta Piṭaka: the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima Nikāya, the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and the Aṅguttara Nikāya.

In these early nikāyas, he argues, jhāna and vipassanā are not separate or competing paths, but rather complementary aspects of a single unified meditative path. Furthermore, insight arises once the mind is stable and concentrated in jhāna, rather than arising from bare insight alone. Thus, once concentration is established, the mind becomes unified, settled, and stable, providing the foundation for deeper insight.

He also argues that mindfulness of the breath, or mindfulness of the body, as described in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10), is meant to lead toward sammā samādhi, that is jhānas. “One remains focused on the body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities, and develops concentration, which leads to enlightenment.” Thus, he suggests that even in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, which is often regarded as the foundational text for vipassanā practice, the Buddha is instructing practitioners to develop jhāna.

Ajahn Sujato (2000) provides extensive textual evidence to support his view. The following examples illustrate his position; the translations are his own.

From the Dhammapada, the following verse suggests that mindfulness and clear comprehension (sati and sampajañña) are not separate from jhāna, but that jhāna arises naturally from mindful, concentrated practice: “Mindful, clearly comprehending, one dwells happily, ardent, fully aware, and concentrated. Such a one enters the first jhāna” (Dhammapada 372).

In the Cattāri Mahābhāgiyā Sutta (AN 4.41), the Buddha states: “Bhikkhus, one should develop the four jhānas; with these as a basis, discernment (paññā) arises, seeing things as they really are.”

In the Cūḷa-saccaka Sutta (MN 117), the Buddha explains that concentration (samatha) and insight (vipassanā) are paired: “With the mind calmed, purified, and bright, one understands the nature of phenomena, leading to liberation.”

Or, as stated in the Māgandiya Sutta (SN 46.51): “Those who dwell in jhāna, fully concentrated, see the arising and passing away of phenomena.”

Sujato also argues that these passages undermine the modern dry-insight teachings. For example, in the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta (AN 5.28), it is said: “The practitioner penetrates the nature of form, feeling, mind, and phenomena only when the mind is unified.”

He further suggests that the classical idea of “the gradual training” is based on the principle that each part of the path provides a foundation for the next: first developing sīla, which supports concentration, then developing samādhi (namely jhāna), which in turn provides the foundation for developing paññā (wisdom).

For Ajahn Sujato, jhāna and vipassanā are not separate or competing paths, but rather complementary aspects of a single unified meditative path. They work together; therefore, we need both. He concludes by agreeing with Ajahn Ṭhānissaro (1997) that modern dry-insight approaches to meditation stem from later developments in the commentarial tradition and are not faithful to the earliest Buddhist teachings, insofar as they downplay the importance of concentration.

Bhikkhu Anālayo (1962—present)

Bhikkhu Anālayo is the latest in a long series of western scholarly monks who ordained in Sri Lanka, and wrote extensively on Theravāda Buddhism for western audiences: these include Nyanatiloka Thera, Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, Nyanaponika Thera and Bhikkhu Bodhi. He has written extensively on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Ānāpānasati Sutta. His work is very scholarly, and often includes references to the ancient Chinese versions of the early suttas.

Bhikkhu Anālayo claims that it is a mistake to make a sharp distinction between the practice of vipassanā, as dry insight, on the one hand, and the practice of jhāna, as an optional extra, on the other. He insists that this does not accord with the early Buddhist texts. He maintains that we need both, that calm and insight, jhāna and vipassanā, are two complementary aspects of mental development, and that jhāna both arises naturally from insight, and then supports insight rather than distracting from it.

Since a concentrated mind supports the development of insight, and the presence of wisdom in turn facilitates the development of deeper levels of concentration, calm (samatha) and insight (vipassanā) are at their best when developed in skillful cooperation. (Anālayo, 2003).

He maintains that practicing satipaṭṭhāna leads naturally to increased concentration and the reduction of the five hindrances (nīvaraṇa), which are the states that prevent the mind from attaining jhāna. These are: sense desire (kāmacchanda), aversion (vyāpāda), sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha), restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca) and doubt (vicikiccha). Since removing these hindrances allows jhāna to arise, satipaṭṭhāna leads to jhāna. Thus:

The practice of satipaṭṭhāna does not require, but rather results in, overcoming the hindrances. (Anālayo, 2003)

From a practical perspective, this means that although we start vipassanā before we have attained higher levels of concentration, jhāna, we should use our vipassanā to develop concentration which will eventually lead to jhāna. Thus, vipassanā without jhāna is incomplete, just as jhāna without vipassanā is also incomplete. He asserts that without this strong concentration, liberating insight will not arise.

In Anālayo ((2019) he describes the Ānāpānasati Sutta, which he claims shows how vipassanā and jhāna work together. He maintains that modern meditators often forget that ānāpāna is far more than a concentration excercise: just like satipaṭṭhāna, it is the path to liberation. He claims that the sixteen steps described in the sutta, integrate samatha (jhāna) and insight (vipassanā) into one integrated path that leads to liberation. Thus, based on this sutta, he continues to maintain the ideas he developed studying the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, namely that jhāna and vipassanā are not mutually exclusive but are complementary aspects of the same path.

He also argues that jhāna in early Buddhism is not defined as a strong state of ultra-absorption, as in the later commentaries, but that jhāna allows mindfulness (sati) to be present, along with awareness of bodily experience. And hence insight can develop within jhāna. Thus ānāpāna, mindfulness of breathing, combines satipaṭṭhāna, vipassanā and jhāna into one unified practice. (Anālayo, 2019).

Modern Lay Scholars

Scholars also have something to say on this topic. Below is a description of the work of a number of writers that I have found helpful.

Wynne (2007) offers an interesting history of meditation at the time of the Buddha, and of how early Buddhist meditation practices emerged from pre-Buddhist Indian contemplative traditions.

He argues that the Buddha did not invent meditation, but rather inherited a range of techniques common in pre-Buddhist ascetic communities—especially breath control, jhānas, and formless absorptions (ārūpas). However, these ascetics used such meditative states to attain union with Brahman, or with a metaphysical Self. The Buddha, according to Wynne, repurposed jhāna as a means to develop insight into impermanence, dukkha, and non-self, thus making jhāna a tool for liberating insight. He created a synthesis of samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā, bound together into a single practice. According to Wynne, this was new, and was the Buddha’s own innovation.

Thus, Wynne argues, the Buddha repurposed jhāna. He regarded it as an altered psychological state, particularly suited for understanding the nature of the mind–body combination, rather than as an altered metaphysical state suitable for union with Atman or some other metaphysical entity. In a nutshell, the Buddha combined jhāna with mindfulness, and that combination leads to insight meditation, namely vipassanā.

Polak (2011) suggests that in the Theravāda tradition there are “fundamental discrepancies” between what the Sutta Piṭaka says about meditation and what later commentaries say. He argues that jhāna in the sutta tradition is quite different from the deep absorption samādhi of Indian yogic practices. Furthermore, the way jhāna is described in the later commentarial tradition—such as in the Visuddhimagga, that is, as deep absorption samādhi—is not present in the earliest Buddhist texts.

Further evidence for this, he argues, is that some meditation forms and techniques common in later Theravāda commentaries—such as kasina meditation, nimitta attainment, and certain concentration practices—are not found in the early Buddhist suttas. He maintains that there are not two separate paths, samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā, as described by Buddhaghosa, but rather that they are the same path and should take place together. In other words, Polak claims that liberating insight is an intrinsic quality of the state of jhāna, and that vipassanā should be practiced while in jhāna.

In Polak (2016), he explains how he believes this takes place. Jhāna quietens the conscious mind, which becomes still. This then enables other mental faculties to come to the fore: unconscious processes that focus on processing and understanding the nature of sensory input and the mind’s reaction to that input. Hence, we come to understand the nature of mind and matter without the conscious mind—the “monkey mind”—getting in the way. He argues that the optimal state of mind for this wisdom to arise is the fourth jhāna.

Polak (2016) describes early Buddhist jhāna as:

a meditative practice endowed with insight, maintaining the sensitivity of the mind and the senses, and yet at the same time leading to altered states of consciousness free from verbal, discursive thought.

According to Polak, this is what the Buddha intended us to practice. But regrettably, he argues:

although the Buddha is revered as an icon and the founder of Buddhism, his teaching is often overshadowed by later charismatic teachers who did not always teach the same as the Buddha.

So, for example, more credit is often given to writers in the commentarial tradition, such as Buddhaghosa, than to the Buddha himself. This is a good point, and we can still see this same dynamic at work in the modern era, where it is common for vipassanā meditators to seek the advice of their modern teachers—Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin or Goenkaji, for example—rather than going back to the actual teachings of the Buddha.

Polak also provides extensive textual support for his ideas. He gives an instructive example from the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta (MN 38), A Discourse on the Ending of Craving. This sutta describes the path in great detail, based on the idea of dependent origination. It explains how vipassanā should be practiced while in the fourth jhāna. After attaining the fourth jhāna, he describes how the senses are operating normally, registering their respective objects, mindfulness of the body is present, and whatever feeling arises the mind remains in a state of equanimity and mindfulness, observing the arising and passing away of mind and matter. Thus:

When meditators abandon the five hindrances, they enter and remain in the first jhāna... second jhāna.. third jhāna... fourth jhāna. When they see a sight with their eyes... a sound with their ears... an odor with their nose... a taste with their tongue... a touch with their body, if it’s pleasant they don’t desire it, and if it’s unpleasant they don’t dislike it. They live with mindfulness of the body established.

When they experience any kind of feeling—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—they don’t approve, welcome, or cling to it. As a result, relishing of feelings ceases. When their relishing ceases, grasping ceases. When grasping ceases, continued existence ceases. When continued existence ceases, rebirth ceases. When rebirth ceases, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress cease. That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.

This is vipassanā leading to englightenment, through the process of dependent origination. And not just vipassana in general—as are most statements about vipassanā made by the Buddha—but enlightenment through observing vedanā (sensation) after first entering jhānas. This is a specific statement about the practice of vedanānupassanā, the particular technique of vipassanā taught by U Ba Khin. The Buddha is explicitly telling us to practice this while in jhāna.

Another scholar, Keren Arbel (2016), has also addressed the issue of vipassanā practiced while in jhāna. This is a very technical, scholarly work, and evaluating her arguments is well beyond my level of education. However, the very title—stating that jhāna is the “actualization of insight”—directly challenges the commentarial tradition.

She also published an article summarizing her book (Arbel 2014), which is less technical. In it, she claims that the suttas contain many passages “in which the Buddha refers to the four jhānas as intrinsic and essential to the development of liberating wisdom and awakening.”

Like many other scholars and practitioners, she also asserts that the distinction between two types of Buddhist meditation—samatha-bhāvanā, working with jhānas, and vipassanā-bhāvanā, working with mindfulness of mental and physical phenomena—which appears in the commentarial tradition, is not found anywhere in the Sutta Piṭaka.

Arbel also points out the obvious fact that the Eightfold Path includes sammā samādhi (commonly understood as the four jhānas) as one of its factors, as well as sammā sati (satipaṭṭhāna practice, or vipassanā). Surely, she argues, the Buddha intended practitioners to develop jhāna if he included it as part of the path, and surely it must be distinct from sammā sati, which is listed as a separate factor.

She then concludes that “the fourth jhāna … is the optimal experiential event for the utter deconditioning of unwholesome tendencies.” In other words, she is saying that according to the Buddha, working in the fourth jhāna is the optimal way to work toward enlightenment and liberation from suffering.

End of Chapter 7

Next chapter:

Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

Previous chapter:

Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Thank you for reading Gary Buck’s Substack. Everything here is free. I do not accept donations. You are free to copy or distribute the content, as long as you give credit, and for noncommercial purposes only.

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Chapter 6:

What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

Reading Time: about 45 mins. 9,000 words.

The Need for Cross Validation

In earlier chapters, everything I described, and all the discussion that followed from that, was based on my own personal experience while meditating. I described how jhāna arose as a natural consequence of my practice of ānāpāna, and how I was able to switch over to practicing vipassanā while still in that jhāna. I also emphasized, repeatedly, that I was practicing both ānāpāna and vipassanā in exactly the same manner that I had been taught by my teachers, Goenkaji and Mother Sayama, in the same manner they had learned from U Ba Khin. I further explained my realization that not only could vipassanā be practiced while in jhāna, but since the concentrated mind is a powerful mind, vipassanā practiced while in jhāna leads to far more powerful meditation, and far more powerful awareness of anicca. To me, this is a simple fact. I observed this in myself, and I assume that anyone who attains jhāna can verify this for themselves.

But I have also gone much further than simply stating facts. I have expressed my opinions. I have recommended that other vipassanā meditators should attempt to incorporate jhāna into their own practice, and I have offered some suggestions about how that could be done, based on my own experience. Since these are just my opinions, I understand that others may have doubts. That is only natural. Why should anyone believe an unknown chap, who suddenly declares that he has discovered the correct way to do vipassanā?

What is needed is something called “cross validation.” This is an important concept in social science research. To explain the basic idea: if we get certain results from a research study, it is always possible that those results arose, not because they are valid and true results, but because of some characteristic of the research method—some design defect or confounding variable—that gave us mistaken results. One way to check that is to attempt to address the same research question using a different research methodology. Then, if we get the same results from both studies, even though they are using different research methods, this suggests that the results are unlikely to be due to some methodological flaw, and consequently, these results are more believable, more robust, and most importantly, they are far more likely to generalize to other similar situations.

So for example, if one particular meditator reaches particular conclusions based on his own practice—such as I did regarding the benefits of practicing vipassanā in jhāna—it is quite possible that the conclusions he reached are due to some particular characteristic he has, or due to some particular misunderstanding he made—in my case, maybe I am not typical, or maybe I am mistaken. We can easily cross-validate his conclusions by comparing them to the experiences of other meditators, especially to the teachings of well-respected meditation teachers. If respected teachers, or respected scholars, have reached similar conclusions, then that cross-validates the conclusions of that particular meditator. And that will give us far more confidence in his conclusions.

Or in simple terms, do my conclusions agree with what the Buddha himself taught? Do my conclusions agree with what other well-known meditation teachers and scholars have to say? Or am I totally alone in my views? If my views coincide with those of the most respected teachers and scholars, then readers can feel more cofidence in my conclusions.

In this chapter, I explore what historically important vipassanā teachers say about the relationship between vipassanā and jhāna; starting by examining what the Buddha himself said, and then moving on to discuss the ideas of those other vipassanā teachers whose work led up to the current global, vipassanā movement.

In the following chapter, I will explore what some well-known modern scholars have to say.

The Buddha

The obvious place to start is with what the Buddha himself says in the Sutta Piṭaka. I am not a Pāli scholar, but there are plenty of translations available that can provide a good idea of what the Buddha actually taught. Scholars may disagree on whether the Sutta Piṭaka preserves the actual words of the Buddha, but there seems to be wide agreement that the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon represents the earliest extant sources, and hence, the closest we can get to the Buddha’s original teachings.

In the Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN 36), the Buddha describes his search for the path to enlightenment. He describes how, after years of ascetic practice, he considered whether jhāna might be the path to enlightenment, followed by his declaration: “That is the path to enlightenment.” He then describes how, on the night of his enlightenment, he passed through the four jhānas and eventually reached the final goal. Thus, the Buddha tells us that it was through jhāna that he attained enlightenment.

He then included Right Concentration (sammā-samādhi) as one of the eight steps of the Noble Eightfold Path, and in the Discourse on the Analysis of Truths (MN 141), the Buddha explained that this means jhāna:

And what is Right Concentration?

“Herein a monk, aloof from sense desires, aloof from unwholesome thoughts, attains to and abides in the first jhāna, which is detachment-born and accompanied by applied thought, sustained thought, joy, and bliss.

By detachment from applied and sustained thought he attains to, and abides in the second jhāna which is inner tranquillity, which is unification (of the mind), devoid of applied and sustained thought, and which has joy and bliss.

By detachment from joy he dwells in equanimity, mindful, and with clear comprehension and enjoys bliss in body, and attains to and abides in the third jhāna which the noble ones (ariyas) call: ‘Dwelling in equanimity, mindfulness, and bliss.’

By giving up of bliss and suffering, by the disappearance already of joy and sorrow, he attains to, and abides in the fourth jhāna, which is neither suffering nor bliss, and which is the purity of equanimity-mindfulness.

This is called Right Concentration.

The same explanation is also given in the Vibhaṅga Sutta (SN 45.8), where the Buddha again explains that sammā-samādhi means jhāna. So, there can be no doubt that jhāna is clearly part of the Noble Eightfold Path.

There are many suttas in which jhāna is described as the basis, or as a platform, from which to eradicate defilements and reach the final goal. For example, in the Samaññaphala Sutta, a discourse on the fruits of the contemplative life (DN 2), the Buddha describes the complete path to liberation in great detail, explaining how jhāna is an integral part of that path. A similar explanation occurs in the Maha-Assapura Sutta (MN 39), where jhāna is not only explained as part of the path but is also described as “an indispensable prerequisite for enlightenment.”

Again, in the Mahāmālukya Sutta (MN 64), the Buddha states that liberation is only possible after a monk has abandoned the five lower fetters (saṃyojana) that tie a person to the sense world and prevent them from attaining nibbāna. These are: personality belief (sakkāya-diṭṭhi), doubt about the teaching (vicikicchā), attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa), sensual desire (kāmacchando), and ill will (vyāpādo). The Buddha explains that these are only abandoned in jhāna. He then states explicitly:

If a monk has not attained the first jhāna, it is impossible that he will make an end of suffering. But if he has attained the first jhāna, it is possible that he will make an end of suffering.

This is a clear statement that we must all attain at least the first jhāna before liberation.

The Jhāna Sutta (AN 9.36) is where the Buddha describes the practice of vipassanā. According to the Buddha, the meditator first attains jhāna and then uses that as a basis for vipassanā, leading eventually to liberation. He explains:

A monk enters and dwells in the first jhāna… second… third… fourth jhāna. Whatever exists of matter (rūpa), of feelings (vedanā), of perception (saññā), of reactions (saṅkhāra), and of consciousness (viññāṇa), he sees these states as impermanent (anicca), as suffering (dukkha), and as insubstantial (anattā). He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element and feels and sees this as peace. This is sublime. This is… nibbāna.

This is a clear, concise explanation of how he taught vipassanā. The Buddha is saying that the mind should first be concentrated to the first jhāna, and then that is used as a basis for vipassanā, which then leads directly to liberation. He then repeats the same instruction for the other jhānas: one first enters that jhāna, then, while in the jhāna, observes mind and body phenomena, noting their characteristics of anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering), and anattā (insubstantiality); liberation follows. This is a fairly standard explanation of vipassanā that appears in many other suttas in the Pāli Canon.

The Anupada Sutta (MN 111) describes how Sāriputta, the Buddha’s chief disciple, attained arahatship in this manner: by entering each jhāna and systematically analyzing the nature of mind and matter while in that jhāna, namely the arising and passing away of all mental and material phenomena. Thus, the texts indicate that both the Buddha himself, and Sāriputta, attained liberation by practicing while in jhāna.

In the Mahāmālukya Sutta (MN 64), the Buddha again describes the five fetters (saṃyojana) that bind a person to this world. He then explains that the path leading to the abandonment of these five fetters is the attainment of the first jhāna... second... third... fourth jhāna, where the meditator observes:

Whatever exists of matter (rūpa), of feelings (vedanā), of perception (saññā), of reactions (saṅkhāra), and of consciousness (viññāṇa), he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumor, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not-self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all saṅkhāra, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nibbāna.’

Again, he is stating that it is the practice of vipassanā while in jhāna that leads to enlightenment.

In the Samādhi Sutta (AN 4.41), the Buddha explains how the practice of jhāna essentially becomes vipassanā through four important developments:

1. It leads to a pleasant abiding in the here and now.

2. It leads to the understanding of how things really are, namely anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), and anattā (not-self).

3. It leads to mindfulness and clear comprehension (sati-sampajañña).

4. When developed and pursued, it leads to the ending of all unwholesome states.

If we look at these descriptions of the benefits of jhāna, the second, third and fourth descriptions are all things we hope to attain through our practice of vipassanā. These are the ultimate goals of our practice, and the Buddha is saying that jhāna will get us there.

And we get the added benefit of having a pleasant experience while doing it. We shouldn’t be surprised at the mention of this. The Buddha frequently talked about the huge benefits of leading a holy life, one of which was how pleasant and agreeable it is. The first benefit he lists above is that the practice of jhāna is a pleasant experience. And here I think that he is not only talking about pleasant physical feelings; I believe he is mainly talking about pleasant mental feeling. Speaking from my own experience, the lower jhānas have very pleasant physical feeling, whereas the fourth jhāna has fairly neutral physical feeling; conversely, the pleasant mental feeling (sukha) is present in the lower jhānas, but becomes stronger in the second and third jhānas. Then, in the fourth jhāna, there is a very refined feeling of tranquility and calm. So while all the jhānas give one a strong sense of well-being, the higher jhānas are a truly wonderful experience. All of them are, indeed, a very peasant abiding.

It is interesting to note that the Buddha is emphasizing the pleasant nature of jhāna, and stressing that this is a benefit. I understand from this that the Buddha is telling us that our meditation should be a pleasant activity; we should enjoy it. The reason is obvious. It is much easier for a meditator to discipline themselves into intensive practice, if that practice is an agreeable, pleasant experience. Those who get jhāna will enjoy their practice, and therefore will be inclined to practice more, and will be more successful.

It is clear from all the above that the Buddha taught us that jhāna is necessary for liberation, and all the quotations show the meditator attaining jhāna before starting vipassanā. However, the explanations are stylized and standardized, and in reality, perhaps not everyone started with jhāna and then moved on to vipassanā. Perhaps this is a literary convention, covering a variety of actual real-world practices. Beginners, for example, may have started vipassanā first, perhaps because they didn’t have the time, or for some other reason, and then added jhāna at a later date, as they progressed. We do not know. But there is an indication of this in the Yuganandha Sutta (AN 4.170), where Ānanda, the Buddha’s personal attendant, describes three ways to become an arahant; either by:

1. developing jhāna before vipassanā

2. developing vipassanā before jhāna

3. developing both simultaneously.

But note that every single one of them had attained jhāna before liberation. This suggests that the order may not be so important. Perhaps you don’t need to get jhāna first. Perhaps a person can spend time practicing vipassanā to great benefit before beginning jhāna. But at some point, on the Buddha’s path, we all have to attain jhāna. The Buddha makes that very clear. Attaining jhāna is thus an important milestone on the path. Otherwise, without jhāna, we will never reach the final goal

Buddhaghosa (370-450)

Most people in the modern age, with a cell phone in their pocket, connected to the internet, have almost instant access to all the world’s knowledge—a truly amazing thing! It was not so in the centuries after the Buddha died. The problem for most monks over the following centuries was that they did not have ready access to the teachings of the Buddha. Literacy was not as common, books were written by hand, and they were precious commodities stored in libraries, so finding out what the Buddha actually taught was no easy matter. Further, for those fortunate few with access to the written Canon, the various texts were scattered across thousands of suttas, all written in an archaic, dead language. Many were also in a cryptic style, suitable for easy recitation, but often needing explanation. And that was just the suttas; the 227 Pāṭimokkha rules by which monks were expected to live were also contained in the three volumes of the Vinaya Piṭaka. There was a clear need for some sort of accessible summary.

Buddhaghosa was an Indian, fifth-century monk who came to the Mahāvihāra Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, and wrote commentaries on the Pāli Canon based on ancient Sinhalese commentaries, or so we are told. He was reported to be from a brahmin family, and an expert in the Vedas before becoming a Buddhist monk. He wrote many works, but his most influential is the Visuddhimagga, a one-volume manual that attempts to summarize and condense the teaching of the Buddha in the Theravāda tradition. It is intended as a guide to the Buddha’s path, aimed mainly at monks, detailing practices and doctrines essential for living the holy life.

Buddhaghosa wrote extensively on meditation. As previously discussed, his ideas are very different from those we read in the Sutta Piṭaka. He says that there are two different tracks of meditation: samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā.

Samatha-bhāvanā is concentration, or calming meditation, aiming for one-pointed concentration, namely jhāna, in which the mind becomes completely absorbed in the object of meditation—so much so that the objective awareness necessary for vipassanā is not possible while in jhāna. He mentions a number of different ways of attaining these states, including mindfulness of breathing (ānāpāna) and loving-kindness (mettā). However, he is most noted for the idea of using kasina objects as a basis for attaining jhāna. These are simple visual objects, such as colored disks, which are then memorized, and the mental image of the disk is then used as the object of meditation. There is no mention of such kasina in the Pāli Canon.

Vipassanā-bhāvanā is insight meditation. After establishing morality and concentration, the meditator is advised to notice mind-body events and processes, and how they arise due to conditions. The meditator is encouraged to develop a direct understanding of the nature of existence, namely impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and non-self (anattā), thus leading to liberation.

This distinction between two types of meditation is very different from what the Buddha taught, as has been noted by many writers. In the Sutta Piṭaka, jhāna is not taught as a separate practice but always occurs along with mindfulness (sati) in the practice of vipassanā. Buddhaghosa also appears to be the one who first introduced the notion of dry insight (sukkhavipassanā), the idea that a meditator can attain enlightenment through the practice of vipassanā without having first attained jhāna. This is contrary to what we read in the suttas, in which the Buddha stated that jhāna is a necessary pre-condition for enlightenment.

Although Buddhaghosa does not allow for the possibility of practicing vipassanā while in jhāna, he does suggest that after emerging from jhāna, one should review the jhāna retrospectively: he suggests that this should include reviewing the jhāna factors, the defilements abandoned, and those defilements remaining, and further that one should contemplate these as anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), and anattā (not-self). Personally, I have considerable trouble with this concept. To me, the basic idea of vipassanā is to observe the nature of things as they are (yathābhūta) and that can only be done in the present moment. What Buddhaghosa is describing is reflection, not observation. Thinking about what happened previously, a short time before the present moment, is not vipassanā—or at least not vipassanā as I have come to understand it.

Buddhaghosa also introduced a number of Pāli terms not found in the suttas to describe the developing stages of concentration. It is helpful to discuss these, since they are used extensively in the later literature and are useful concepts when discussing meditation. Khanika samādhi is usually translated as “momentary concentration,” where the mind can stay concentrated for a short while—just a few seconds—sufficient to begin meditation. Upacāra samādhi is usually translated as “access concentration,” where the mind is one-pointed and can stay longer on the object of attention, preparatory to accessing jhāna. Appanā samādhi is used to describe what we might call full jhāna, i.e. with the same meaning as the word “jhāna” is used in the Pāli Canon.

Later writers, especially those promoting the practice of vipassanā without the prior need to attain jhāna, also used the term jhāna to describe levels of concentration that they considered sufficient to practice vipassanā, but which were not jhāna as described in the Canon (i.e., were not appanā samādhi). Thus, the term “vipassanā jhāna” is sometimes used to refer to khanika samādhi (momentary concentration), since one can begin practicing vipassanā with this type of concentration. However, usage does not seem to be consistent, and I have also heard the term “vipassanā jhāna” used to describe the practice of vipassanā while in jhāna.

This has led to the use of another term, sutta jhāna, which refers to appanā samādhi, i.e. full jhāna as the word is used in the suttas. Finally, there is the term lokuttara jhāna, the supra-mundane jhāna that arises, very briefly, at the moment of realizing nibbāna and frees the mind from all defilements. This term is sometimes used as a synonym for attaining enlightenment.

As a general caution, when discussing jhāna, it is important to be aware of the particular type of concentration being referred to. If not, misunderstandings can easily arise.

However, despite its obvious differences from the Pāli Canon, the Visuddhimagga has become one of the most important texts in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition. It became the main source of reference for large numbers of monks and laypeople alike over the last fifteen hundred years. Its influence has been enormous. I believe this has caused considerable confusion among later generations regarding how the Buddha intended us to meditate.

Regarding the teaching of meditation, the obvious conclusion is that Buddhaghosa is not teaching what the Buddha taught and should not be used as a source to understand the Buddha’s original teaching.

Medawi Sayadaw (1728-1816)

The Burmese monk Medawi Sayadaw is perhaps the earliest known figure of the modern global vipassanā movement; certainly the oldest I could find. He focused on making insight meditation accessible to both monks and laypeople. He wrote a number of meditation manuals in his life (Pranke, 2010). At the time in Burma, there were two common beliefs that he strongly opposed. First, there was the belief that a meditator needed to attain jhāna before beginning vipassanā meditation. We have seen that this is the standard way vipassanā is described in the Pāli Canon—first attain jhāna, then observe mind and matter, knowing its true nature—and it appears that at the time Medawi was writing, many believed that vipassanā could only be practiced after attaining jhāna. Given the time and effort required to attain jhāna, this may well have become a serious impediment to the practice of vipassanā. Medawi argued that it is possible to practice vipassanā without jhāna; he suggested that when the mind attends to the rising and passing away of mental and physical phenomena, this attention develops into sufficient concentration to develop insight. This is an important statement historically, since it probably marks the starting point of the modern, global, lay vipassanā movement (Medawi, 1756).

The second belief he challenged was the common belief that it was no longer possible for a person to attain liberation through meditation and that devout Buddhists should instead focus on keeping good sīla and giving donations (dāna), hoping for rebirth at the time of the next Buddha. Medawi disagreed. He believed that enlightenment was still possible through the practice of vipassanā, and that people should not waste time, but begin immediately, even if they did not have jhāna.

Medawi Sayadaw taught that ordinary bodily and mental processes should be the object of meditation, and that direct perception in the here and now is what leads to insight, not later reflection (Medawi, 1756). His technique of meditation seems to have consisted of sitting and observing everything that arises in the body or in the mind. He appears to have started with noticing sensations in the body—pressure, warmth, movement, and so on—observing each one as arising, persisting briefly, and then dissolving. His instructions were not to analyze, but simply to observe. He then recommends the observation of mental processes: intention, attention, feeling (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral), perception, and wandering thoughts. Each of these phenomena is to be understood as anicca (impermanent), dukkha (misery), and anattā (not-self). This seems to me to be a classical description of vipassanā, and is very similar to the Buddha’s description found in the Pāli Canon: namely, observing the five aggregates—material body, consciousness, cognition, feeling and reactions—while knowing the characteristics of these as impermanence, suffering, and non-self.

His teaching was aimed at ordinary laypeople as well as monks, and he presented his ideas in practical, experiential language rather than as philosophy. For example, regarding the abstract concept of anattā (not-self), he is reported to have told meditators, “Look for the one who feels, and you find only feeling. Look for the one who thinks, and you find only thought.”

But although he emphasized that jhāna is not necessary for vipassanā, he nevertheless fully approved of jhāna as a valid and powerful support for insight. He suggested that jhāna provides an important way to purify the mind. He also seems to have accepted the idea that vipassanā can be practiced while in jhāna. He saw jhāna as an integral part of the path, and as something to be encouraged for those who had the ability and the opportunity. His ideas seem to me to be fully in line with the teaching of the Buddha in the Pāli Canon. The only difference is that he emphasized that one could start vipassanā even if one has not attained jhāna, which is quite possibly what new monks did, even at the time of the Buddha.

Medawi Sayadaw’s core idea seems to have been: “If you have jhāna, good—use it for vipassanā. If you don’t have jhāna, practice vipassanā anyway.” To me, this sounds like very sound advice.

Ledi Sayadaw (1846-1923)

Ledi Sayadaw wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century in Burma, during the time of British colonial rule, as part of a movement to preserve the traditional teachings of the Buddha, which many Burmese felt were under pressure from the colonial powers. He wrote in Burmese, not Pāli, and his words were addressed to the laity as well as to monks. Given his aim of promoting vipassanā to lay practitioners, he emphasized that vipassanā does not require high levels of concentration, but can be practiced with momentary concentration (khaṇika samādhi).

His teaching is very similar to that of Medawi, centering around observation of the five aggregates—namely, the material body (rupa), consciousness (viññāṇa), cognition (saññā), feeling (vedanā) and reactions (saṅkhāra)—while knowing the three universal characteristics of these, impermanence, suffering, and non-self. The influence of Medawi seems obvious, and Ledi Sayadaw himself acknowledged that. His teachings have had a significant impact on later vipassanā teachers, especially Mahāsi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin, the “founders” of the two main branches of the current, global, vipassanā movement.

Ledi Sayadaw’s method of vipassanā emphasized direct observation of vedanā (body sensations) as the basis for vipassanā practice. He taught the observation of sensation as it arises and passes away—whether heat, pressure, tension, vibration, tingling, pain, and so on—and the recognition of each sensation as anicca (impermanent). This focus on scanning through the body, observing vedanā while knowing its impermanent nature, anicca, became the basis for U Ba Khin’s technique, which was also taught by his students Goenkaji and Mother Sayama. There is a direct lineage, since U Ba Khin learned vipassanā from a student of Ledi Sayadaw, a lay practitioner called Saya Thetji.

He also recommended observing the four elements within those sensations: (i) the earth element (solidity, pressure, hardness), experienced by feeling the hardness of the seat; (ii) the water element (cohesion, fluidity), observed as flowing or pulsing sensations; (iii) the air element (movement, vibration), likewise observed as flowing or pulsing sensations; and (iv) the fire element (temperature, heat and cold), observed as warmth or coolness in the body. There are traditional meditation techniques that use these four elements as a way to analyze material form. This aspect of Ledi Sayadaw’s teaching was not emphasized by U Ba Khin, or his students, although Goenkaji does talk about them in his discourses. I have to say that this sort of analysis does not seem to make much sense to western-educated students, and perhaps this is why it is not emphasized.

Ledi Sayadaw also taught some techniques that are not part of the later U Ba Khin tradition, but which were adapted by Mahāsi Sayadaw, the founder of the other worldwide lay vipassanā tradition. The first of these is noting, or mentally labeling phenomena as they arise—for example, mentally noting “hearing” when hearing a sound, “touching” when touching something, or “thinking” when thoughts arise. He felt that noting helps maintain attention and prevents the mind from wandering.

Another instruction Ledi gave, later fully adopted by Mahāsi Sayadaw, was noting the rising and falling of the abdomen: noting “rising” when air comes in and “falling” when air goes out. Then, if another object becomes stronger and impinges on consciousness, one should note that object, and afterward return to the rising and falling of the abdomen once it has passed.

Ledi Sayadaw expressed a very nuanced view of jhāna and its relationship to vipassanā. He summarizes his teaching in a number of explanatory works. In his Manual of Mindfulness of Breathing (Ānāpāna Dīpanī), he strongly advocated ānāpāna as a means to develop concentration and strongly encouraged the practice of jhāna as an integral part of the Buddha’s path. Of course, he must have known full well that most laypeople would not be able to attain jhāna.

In his Manual of Conditional Relations (Paṭṭhānuddesa Dīpanī), he advises practitioners to “develop concentration to the degree possible, and then cultivate insight.” He is clearly recommending that lay meditators should not wait until they have attained jhāna before they begin vipassanā. And in his Manual of Insight (Vipassanā Dīpanī), he again emphasizes that insight can be developed without jhāna, and that enlightenment, therefore, is also possible without it.

In these texts, he describes two ways in which it is possible to practice vipassanā and jhāna together. First, he says that vipassanā can be developed after emerging from jhāna and reflecting on the experience, which is the method described in the commentarial tradition by Buddhaghosa. As noted above, to me this is reflection on the past, and is not the same as vipassanā, which involves observing the present moment yathābhūta, or in English, “as it is.”

Second, Ledi Sayadaw says that a highly skilled meditator can practice vipassanā while still in the state of full jhāna (appanā samādhi), by directing the concentrated mind toward investigating the three characteristics of mind and body phenomena (nāmarupa): anicca (impermanence), dukkha (misery), and anattā (not-self). He uses the phrase appanā-vipassanā to refer to this technique of practicing vipassanā while still in full jhāna. So again, there is agreement that vipassanā can be practiced while in jhāna.

Mahāsi Sayadaw (1904-1982)

Mahāsi Sayadaw is one of the most influential Theravāda meditation teachers, and his technique is one of the two that form the core of the global, lay vipassanā tradition. His technique is explicitly based on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10 or DN 22).

His practice focuses on noting the rising and falling of the abdomen as the breath comes in and goes out. At the same time, the meditator notes and labels any sensations, thoughts, or feelings that occur, thus developing mindfulness of all phenomena as they arise and pass away. This leads to strong momentary concentration (khaṇika samādhi), insight into impermanence (anicca), and ultimately, to liberation.

He taught that jhāna is valuable and a legitimate part of the Eightfold Noble Path, but that deep absorption (appanā samādhi) is not required to practice vipassanā. Instead, he taught that momentary concentration (khaṇika samādhi), which arises from continuous mindfulness, is sufficient to support deep insight into impermanence, suffering, and non-self. He writes: “If the meditator develops concentration moment by moment, he can attain insight knowledge without having previously achieved absorption.” (Mahāsi Sayadaw. 1965). He suggested that, while not mandatory, jhāna can be a powerful aid, in that it stabilizes the mind and makes vipassanā practice smoother and clearer, and progress in vipassanā much easier. However, he warns that attachment to jhānic bliss or tranquility can become an obstacle if one fails to investigate impermanence: “Those who cling to the calm and happiness of absorption are delayed in attaining insight.” (Mahāsi Sayadaw, 1965).

On the issue of whether vipassanā can be practiced while in jhāna, he says that it can, but he appears to introduce some caveats. He writes: “A person who, having attained access or absorption concentration, contemplates the five aggregates is called a samatha-yānika, one who makes tranquility his vehicle.” However, he may be suggesting that this contemplation occurs after emerging from jhāna: “Having emerged from absorption, he contemplates the jhānic factors—applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, happiness, and one-pointedness—as impermanent, suffering, and not-self.” It is therefore not entirely clear to me whether he supported the idea of practicing vipassanā while in full jhāna or not. (Mahāsi Sayadaw, 1965).

U Ba Khin (1899–1971)

The technique taught by U Ba Khin is the one I practice, as described in detail in Part One of this book. The basic practice is relatively simple. Ānāpāna is used as a tool to concentrate the mind. New students are first taught awareness of the in-and-out breath. After a short while, they are asked to switch their attention to a small area of sensation on the upper lip. The main practice is the observation of body sensations (vedanānupassanā) with an equanimous mind, maintaining the awareness that these phenomena are anicca (impermanent). This is very similar to the practice taught by Medawi Sayadaw, except that the student is asked to focus particularly on sensation, rather than on whatever mind-and-body (nāma-rupa) phenomena arise.

In reality, as the mind becomes more concentrated and the meditator more adept, awareness of sensations is naturally accompanied by awareness of a variety of other mental and physical phenomena as they arise and pass away—initially seen as anicca (impermanent), and later as dukkha (misery) and anattā (not-self). U Ba Khin (1981) explains:

For in vipassana meditation one contemplates not only the changing nature of matter, but also the changing nature of mentality, of the thought-elements of attention directed towards the process of change going on within matter. At times the attention will be focused on the impermanence of the material side of existence, i.e. upon anicca in regard to rupa, and at other times on the impermanence of the thought-elements or mental side, i.e., upon anicca in regard to nāma.

So although the method taught by U Ba Khin’s—and later by his students Goenkaji and Mother Sayama—begins with vedanānupassanā, the observation of body sensations while knowing them as anicca, it soon evolves naturally into the observation of the whole mental and physical structure (nāmarūpa): thus whatever there exists of matter (rūpa), of feelings (vedanā), of perception (saññā), of reactions (saṅkhāra), and of consciousness (viññāṇa), the meditator sees these states as impermanent, as suffering, and as insubstantial. This aligns closely with what the Buddha taught in the Pāli Canon, and with later teachers Medawi Sayadaw and Ledi Sayadaw, who both describe vipassanā in the same manner.

The Buddha consistently begins his descriptions of vipassanā by recommending that the meditator first concentrate the mind, and then proceed to observe the nature of mind and matter. In the same way, U Ba Khin taught his students to first develop concentration by practicing ānāpāna, and then progress to vipassanā. In this respect, U Ba Khin’s teaching is fully in line with the Buddha’s teaching.

However, there is one significant difference: namely the Buddha always starts his description of vipassanā by stating that the meditator first attains jhāna—either the first, second, third or fourth jhāna—and then proceeds to practice vipassanā, observing mind and matter while knowing their nature.

In his writings, U Ba Khin (1981) does not mention jhāna specifically, but does emphasize that concentration should be developed until it is one-pointed, which in Theravada circles is often used as a synonym for jhāna He also says that it is only when samādhi is good that one develop paññā (wisdom). He suggests that “awareness of anicca should go on from moment to moment so continuously as not to allow for the interpolation of any discursive or distracting thoughts;” something that does not happen until the mind attains jhāna. Further he says, “samādhi must be good to have a good experience of anicca; if samādhi is excellent, awareness of anicca will also be excellent.” (U Ba Khin, 1981)

Most people seem to assume that U Ba Khin is referring to khaṇika samādhi, momentary concentration, when he makes these remarks. And perhaps he is, since he taught lay people, most of whom would not have had the time or opportunity to attain jhāna. But these statements can just as easily be understood to mean that jhāna (appanā samādhi) is ideal for the practice of vipassanā, but that people can also get the benefits with less than the ideal level of concentration.

U Ba Khin offers strong support for this in his earlier lectures in Rangoon; a series of three lectures called What Buddhism Is. Talking to a non-Buddhist audience, he clearly and explicitly recommends the practice of jhāna as beneficial to vipassanā.

Exercise of the mind is just as necessary as exercise of the physical body. Why not, then, give exercise to the mind and make it pure and strong so that you may enjoy the “Jhānic Peace Within.” When Inner Peace begins to permeate the mind, you will surely progress in the knowledge of Truth. (U Ba Khin, 1951).

It seems to me that he is saying quite clearly and explicitly that the mind develops wisdom when it enters jhāna. He must have known what a useful tool it was, and how it helped vipassana. And although he did not emphasize the practice of jhāna in his public ten-day courses, or not as far as I am aware, it was well known (or should I say, widely believed) that some of his students had attained very advanced states of purity; nibbāna, as well as all the jhānas. I was told by students of his, that he did teach jhāna, but only to his advanced students. And in support of this, I remember seeing part of an old black-and-white film documentary, showing U Ba Khin and his meditation center. The footage showed one of his students meditating, in a very advanced and rarified mental state (I forget which). So, since he clearly did teach both jhāna and other more advanced mental states to some of his students, he must have been fully aware if the tremendous benefits of a concentrated mind, and how that inner jhānic peace leads to the realization of the Buddha’s truth. In other words, it seems to me that he must surely have regarded jhāna as part of our practice, as part of our vipassanā tradition, even though he did not teach that to most lay people..

Further support for the notion that jhāna is part of the U Ba Khin tradition is provided by U Chit Tin, a dedicated, long-term student of U Ba Khin, and the husband of Mother Sayama. Sayama did not speak English, and so she conducted meditation courses in partnership with U Chit Tin. He translated her advice, as well as giving the discourses. While taking about developing concentration during ānāpāna, he encouraged students to overcome what are called the five hindrances (nīvaraṇa), namely: sense desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness, and doubt; as does Goenkaji in his discourses, and indeed as do most meditation teachers. These are mental qualities that cloud our understanding, and prevent us gaining good concentration, whether access concentration (upacāra samādhi) or jhāna (appanā samādhi). U Chit Tin continues:

With the five hindrances eliminated, it is possible to develop the absorbtion states—the jhānas. This is especially the case for bhikkhus [monks], whose lives are very pure. Because of their great purity, they’re able to attain these high states of concentration. For us, as laymen, it is sufficient to aquire just a good level of concentration (U Chit Tin, 1997).

To me, this is strong evidence that jhāna is part of the U Ba Khin tradition, and that vipassanā should ideally be practiced in jhāna, just as the Buddha recommended, but that this has been dropped, or at least de-emphasized, in order to make vipassanā more accessible to lay people.

The technique taught by S. N. Goenka in his public ten-day courses is the same as that taught by U Ba Khin. I can say this because, having originally learned vipassanā under Goenkaji, and also having visited U Ba Khin’s meditation center many times in the years just after his death—where I met many of his students—and having studied for many years under another of U Ba Khin’s appointed teachers, Mother Sayama, I believe that the actual practice taught by U Ba Khin and Goenkaji are essentially the same. As practitioners, there was no difference that I could see. The only difference lay in how the technique was introduced.

In summary, all of these teachers in the U Ba Khin tradition taught that after taking eight precepts, ānāpāna (awareness of the natural breath, and/or awareness of the small sensation on the upper lip) is used to build concentration, followed by vipassanā (observing body sensations), knowing that these are anicca (impermanent), while maintaining equanimity (upekkhā). At the end of the course, mettā bhāvanā (meditation to generate loving kindness) was practiced in all cases.

The main difference was that U Ba Khin, as well as Mother Sayama, taught small groups of students, and the instruction was very personal and individualized. Goenkaji taught large groups of 200 or more and therefore presented the teaching in a standardized, systematic manner, enabling him to teach many students simultaneously. Later, Goenkaji introduced audio and video recordings of his instructions and discourses, allowing assistant teachers to lead courses without his presence.

Another difference in presentation was that U Ba Khin mainly taught practicing Buddhists in a Buddhist country and therefore allowed more traditional Buddhist ideas into his teaching. Similarly, Sayama also taught as a Buddhist in a Buddhist context. Goenkaji, by contrast, taught largely non-Buddhists and presented the technique in a more secular, non-sectarian manner, deliberately de-emphasizing anything that could be seen as esoteric or as “Buddhist belief.” To me, however, these were differences in presentation, not in the practice itself. I believe that both Sayama and Goenkaji taught exactly as their teacher had taught them.

Regarding the practice of jhāna and its relation to vipassanā, I can find no specific reference to Goenkaji stating whether or not vipassanā can be practiced while in jhāna. Nor can I find any instructions regarding what to do if jhāna arises unexpectedly.

But I have heard a number of his students claim that Goenkaji said that if jhāna arises, meditators should continue as before, and simply observe with equanimity. However, despite numerous attempts, I have been unable to find an explicit reference for such statements. But even if he made such statements, they do not necessarily mean anything about his attitude to jhāna, since the basic practice of vipassanā is to observe whatever arises, or whatever experience one encounters, with equanimity and detachment. So what should you do when unexpected states arise? One continues to observe with equanimity. This is a standard response that should be applied to anything that arises, whether unexpected or not. It is just basic practice, and does not necessarily give us any idea of what Goenkaji thought about the practice of jhāna.

But I think we can make some assumptions about his position on this issue. Firstly, given his frequent expressions of deep devotion to his teacher, U Ba Khin, and his expressed intention to continue the mission of U Ba Khin to spread vipassanā to the world, it is impossible for me to imagine Goenkaji promoting, or saying, anything contrary to what U Ba Khin said. I believe he was teaching what he had learned, and was consciously passing on the tradition just as he had received it.

Second, in his long-course discourses Goenkaji often refers to jhāna in terms of “deep absorption samadhi” using terminology which suggests that he saw jhāna in similar terms to Buddhaghosa, namely as something quite separate from, and not compatible with, vipassanā. This would not be surprising, since Buddhaghosa’s ideas are very prevalent in Theravada circles, and were generally held in high esteem. And given that during his years with his teacher, as a layman, he worked with other lay people, taking ten-day courses, and helping and teaching members of the Indian community. Wonderful service! But he would have had little, or no opportunity to work with jhāna. And although he was obviously a very serious and devoted student, when I spoke to his peers, old students of U Ba Khin, I heard nothing suggesting that he was one of those students who were receiving special instructions.

It seems likely to me that he either did not encounter jhāna, or if he did, it was not a significant part of his world. So perhaps he simply accepted what most people believed, namely what Buddhaghosa taught in the Visuddhimagga. And when the topic of jhāna came up, he just repeated what most people believed. It didn’t really matter, since in his world of lay practitioners taking ten-day courses, jhāna was not a relevant issue. I am sure he assumed, as did U Chit Tin, that as laymen, it is sufficient to aquire a good level of concentration. It was only later, after he started offering longer retreats, that jhāna became a relevant topic.

My assumptions about Goenkaji’s attitude to jhāna are just that—assumptions. This is just a story I tell myself. But it does explain to me why Goenkaji seems to have excluded jhāna from his teaching when the previous teachers in his tradition all seemed to have understood that jhāna is very beneficial for vipassanā.

Other Meditation Teachers

Apart from the Burmese vipassanā tradition described above, there are a number of other meditation traditions within the Theravāda community, especially in the Buddhist Saṅgha.

Pa Auk Sayadaw is a Burmese monk, who teachers meditation to both monks and lay people. The teaching is explicitly based on both the Visuddhimagga and the Abhidhamma. Meditators first learn samatha, using any of the meditaiton subjects in the Visuddhimagga, in order to develop jhāna, as a foundation for vipassanā; although he does emphasize ānāpāna-sati to attain jhāna. When teaching ānāpāna, he asks the meditator to focus on the nimitta, a mental image, a “light” or a “disk” that appears in the mind’s eye. The meditaror focuses on that mental image to attain jhāna.

The meditator then exits the jhāna to begin the practice of vipassanā, which appears to consist of meditation on the four elements. Instructions are to first review the jhāna factors, and then investigate bodily and mental processes, knowing their characteristics as impermanent, suffering, and non-self (Pa-Auk Sayadaw, 2019). Note that he does not say that vipassanā can be practiced while still in jhāna. Rather he clearly teaches that the meditator must emerge from jhāna first. He is explicitly critical of the dry-insight movement, on the grounds that without jhāna the mind is not sufficiently stable to practice vipassanā and understand reality.

In the Thai Forest tradition, there are many well-known meditation teachers, many of whom have written extensively. Ajahn Chah is well known in the Western world, since he trained a number of Western monks who returned to the West to teach meditation and establish monasteries. He taught that jhāna is useful, but not essential, to the practice of vipassanā. His disciple Ajahn Sumedho (1989) also teaches that jhāna is important, but emphasizes that it is a tool, not an end in itself. He stresses mindfulness of the present moment in order to see things as they really are. He suggests that vipassanā can be practiced either in or out of full jhāna.

Another of Ajahn Chah’s students, Ajahn Brahm (2006) taught that jhāna is important. In his interview with Richard Shankman (Shankman, 2008), when asked about fears that meditators could become attached to the pleasure of jhāna, he replies;

The Buddha says very clearly that you should not be afraid of the jhānas, that you should develop them, make much of them, and cultivate them. He also said that jhānas are the only meditation that he praises and recommends. And these are very, very strong statements, which are not only in the Theravada suttas, but also in the Chinese Agamas, so they are accepted as the legitimate sayings of the Buddha.

However, he also says that it is difficult to develop insight in deep jhāna, and that insight is better developed after emerging from jhāna (Ajahn Brahm, 2006). In fact, in the interview references above, he goes so far as to suggest that “It is quite clear that in jhāna you cannot feel anything to do with the body.” This seems to be quite an extraordinary statement, since in the first and second jhāna, there is the jhāna factor pīti, which is an intense, pleasant physical sensation. I don’t know what to make of this statement. Perhaps it is some sort of misunderstanding, or a typo, perhaps.

Shankman (2008) records a series of interviews with a number of well-known modern vipassanā teachers; both monks and laypeople. What is very clear from these interviews is that these teachers do not agree with each other at all. There is such a wide variety of views that it almost seems that they are talking about different things. Some think jhāna is important and necessary, and some think you don’t need it at all. If I attempt to summarize these differences, they seem to reflect two basic approaches to vipassanā; firstly those who tend to emphasize the importance of concentration in the practice of vipassanā, and secondly, those who tend to emphasize the importance or mindfulness in the practice of vipassanā. Of course, everyone believes that both concentration and mindfulness are important, but there is a noticeable difference in emphasis. And this tends to resolve into those who promote the practice of jhāna, and those who do not. I do not intend to discuss the details here, but readers are recommended to read these interviews for themselves.

When Jhāna is the Default

Before leaving this topic of what historical and modern vipassanā teachers say about using jhāna in our vipassanā practice, I wish to discuss one topic that I do not understand, and which troubles me, somewhat. There are many teachers quoted above who recommend a sort of two-stage process; they recommend using jhāna as a means to develop concentration and then exiting that jhāna in order to begin practicing vipassanā outside the jhāna. I find that very perplexing.

The reason is simple, and has to do with the nature of jhāna. One of the first things I realized about jhāna, and this applies to all the four jhānas, is that once you have attained the level of concentration necessary to enter that state, you continue to maintain that concentration; at least for a certain period of time. So when you restart meditation after a short break, you will naturally re-enter the state of jhāna you left a while before. So, for example, when I first attained jhāna, and I had sat for an hour in the first jhāna, at the end of that sitting, I took a meal break. During the break, I wondered whether I would be able to get back into that state. When I went back to meditate, I found it was relatively easy to re-enter that first jhāna; in fact it just happened automatically. I “had attained the jhāna” in the sense that I was able to re-enter it at will by simply restarting my meditation.

I noticed this characteristic for all the jhānas. One I “attained” a particular jhāna, then that jhāna is where my mind went when I started to meditate again. That became my default state of meditation. It just took a little while to settle the mind down, and then I re-entered into it. In fact, there was no need to make any effort to enter that jhāna, it was quite automatic. I had “attained” it. Or to put it another way, once I had a certain level of concentration, I maintained that level of concentration from one sitting to the next.

This is not special to the jhānas. All my life, on meditation courses, I slowly built up my concentration, and each sitting I built on the level of concentration which I had attained previously. If I stopped meditating, after some time, the concentration would slowly be lost. but if I continued meditating then I kept the progress I had made on the previous days. This is something that I have come to regard as a fundamental feature of the human mind, and I assume this applies to all meditators. I am sure that for normal meditators, every meditator on every retreat, new and old, ten days or thirty days, their concentration builds up at they continue to meditate. Thus on day four, for example, they start the day with approximately the same level of concentration they had at the end of day three.

This is why I naturally progressed up through the jhānas, until eventually I arrived at the fourth jhāna. Not only was this automatic, but I had considerable difficulty knowing how to prevent it from happening. If I had attained the fourth jhāna when doing ānāpāna, then when I switched to vipassanā, I naturally gravitated to the fourth jhāna.

So what happens if a meditator uses some method to develop concentration until they get well-established in jhāna, and then they exit that meditation method, and begin to practice vipassanā meditation? Surely, after a short while, after their mind gets settled, they will automatically revert to their default level of concentration, and go into the jhāna they had established. This is a natural process. It may be possible for some meditators to prevent that, and stay out of the jhāna, but I found that very difficult, well-nigh impossible. And why would they attempt to get out of it? The mind is very concentrated and doing a good job of vipassanā, why stop it?

So to get back to those teachers who recommend samatha to develop jhāna and then exit that to begin vipassanā, they will still have that level of concentration, namely the jhāna, when they begin their vipassanā practice. They are not switching their level of default concentration,... .they are only switching the object of attention and the purpose of their meditation. So they are likely to be doing vipassanā while in jhāna. Although this is simply supposition on my part, and although I have never discussed this with people who use this technique, it seems clear to me that they are almost certainly doing vipassana while in jhāna, I just don’t see how else it could be.

End of Chapter 6.

Next chapter:

Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

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Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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Chapter 5

What This Means for Other Meditators

Reading Time: about 46 mins. 9,200 words.

Can We Generalize?

There is a question that comes at the end of every research study in the social sciences: “How well do these results generalize to other people, in other situations?” I think we should consider the same question here: how well do these experiences of mine generalize to other vipassanā meditators? Frankly and honestly, I do not know. I cannot state categorically that others will get similar results by practicing as I did. It is simply impossible to know for sure.

However, I know that other vipassanā students do in fact attain jhāna. And I know of others who have attained all four jhānas as I did. I assume that many others have done so as well. I also know that there are many people just like me: namely, dedicated vipassanā students who have lived their lives trying to keep good sīla, who are practicing vipassanā meditation as best they can, meditating on a regular basis, and attending retreats when possible. There are hundreds of them in the US, and probably thousands across the globe. Many of these vipassanā students are far more dedicated than I am and have done far more meditation than I have. Is there any reason to think they cannot experience the same states I did? I think not! So, although it is not possible to make general statements based on the experience of one person, I think there is every reason to assume that many other meditators who significantly increased their effort would attain jhāna, and be able to use them to improve their practice.

Other scholars are very encouraging. In a series of interviews with meditation teachers, Richard Shankmann asks Bhante Gunaratana whether anyone can attain jhāna, who replied by saying, “Everyone can attain jhāna, but some people are very slow. Some people are fast.” Asked the same question, Ajahn Ṭhānissaro replied, “I don’t see why not. But there is the question of whether everyone will be interested, or put in the necessary effort” (Shankmann, 2008).

But perhaps pāramī are also important. For those who may not know, the idea of pāramī is common in the Theravāda tradition. This is the idea that we build our spiritual practice over a number of lifetimes, and pāramī are those important spiritual qualities that we cultivate over these many lifetimes. It is kamma, good kamma. In previous lives, if we have cultivated certain wholesome actions, these result in favorable tendencies or outcomes in our later lives. Thus, we are not blank slates, but the results of our kamma—namely, our past actions of thought, word, and deed—which come with us and have a strong influence on our current life. Those who take readily to Dhamma practice are said to have “good pāramī.” It is quite possible that a person needs to have built up the right pāramī in order to attain jhāna.

And we do not have to believe in multiple lives to hold such a view. If we express the idea in more prosaic terms, perhaps some people do not have the right skills, or the right proclivities, to develop these states, while, conversely, perhaps others do. People obviously differ. Some people naturally live good moral lives; others do not. Some are kind; others are not. Some take to Dhamma practice much more readily than others, and some seem to make faster progress than others. Different people have different tendencies. Perhaps some meditators may not be able to attain that first jhāna, while others may find it easier than I did. Surely, if they have good enough pāramī to have already developed a strong Dhamma practice, they will often have good enough pāramī to attain the first jhāna.

However, we do not know what pāramī we actually have. We do not know how much we can attain until we try. And whether we have good pāramī or not, the task is the same: namely, to cultivate our spiritual practice as best we can, here and now. So what follows is the advice I would give to any meditator, in whatever tradition, in whatever religious context, who wants to attain jhāna. I believe that the advice I offer is based on general characteristics of the mind, and that it should apply to anyone, anywhere, regardless of what they believe. Attaining jhāna, it seems to me, is a question of controlling the mind—of building one-pointed concentration. Of course, this needs to rest on a foundation of good sīla, but for me, jhāna was simply a natural consequence of a concentrated mind.

Importantly, I should clarify that I have no training or experience in teaching meditation. I give this advice based entirely on generalizing from my own experience. So remember, it is based on a sample of one person—and we all know that we should be wary of generalizing from the anecdotal evidence of one person.

And if you take my advice, work for one-pointed concentration and attain jhāna, will your experience be the same as mine? Is jhāna the same for everyone? Again I do not know. I only know how I experienced jhāna. And I feel very confident that my experience of jhāna accorded quite well with the accounts of jhāna found in the suttas. The standard description of jhāna—a progression of four levels, with specific jhāna factors associated with each level—is exactly what I experienced. But a friend, a professor who studies this field, told me that other descriptions of jhāna that he had seen—which also accorded well with the accounts of jhāna found in the suttas—differed in some respects from mine. As a consequence, he said that he has come to believe that people are not identical in their psychological makeup, so their experience of jhāna is not identical.

This seems like a sensible caution. People can differ considerably in both their physical and psychological characteristics. So perhaps your jhāna will not be quite the same as mine. I think in general terms, it will be a pleasant, concentrated experience that accords well with the classical descriptions found in the suttas. But the details of the experience may be very different from mine. And your ability, or your desire, to incorporate jhāna into your vipassanā practice may also be different from mine. I think that is quite possible.

To further reinforce the professor’s point, I also had a conversation with an old friend, who said essentially the same. He is a dedicated, life-long meditator, and very experienced meditation teacher; someone who has used all four jhānas in his own practice. He told me that he had come to believe that people don’t all experience jhāna in the same way. His point is that since people talk about them in different ways, describe them in different ways, and use them in different ways, then they must be experiencing them in different ways; which seems to me like a sensible conclusion. We all have different histories, different abilities, different beliefs and different aspirations. These create the world in which we live, and so we all live in different mental worlds. It seems natural that our experience of jhāna will be different.

The important point being that the experience of jhāna seems to differ considerably between one person and the next. And just in case this point needs more emphasis, the reader can go back to Shankmann (2008). In the second part of that book, he interviews a number of well-known vipassanā teachers; their views on jhāna differ considerably from each other. So, my dear reader, your experience will perhaps be quite different from mine. But however you experience it, whatever you think about it, I am convinced that it will be a very rewarding spiritual experience.

I think this helps to explain why there are so many conflicting views about jhāna, and so many differing ideas about how we should use jhāna in our meditation. In some cases, of course, confusion can arise because people may be using the word “jhāna” with varying meanings; referring to different types of concentration from that being described in the suttas. It is clear that the word “jhāna” can have different meanings in different contexts. (More about that later.) But putting that aside, among those who use the word in the “classical” meaning, namely as it is used in the suttas, I am sure that they are often describing experiences different from mine. And further, I am also sure that many will feel they can relate these “different experiences” to the standard descriptions found in the suttas; just as I can do with my experiences. Please bear this in mind

The Nature of Jhāna?

I think it is worthwhile to explore the nature of jhāna a little more. My wife has a favorite saying: “the events and experiences of our life have no inherent meaning, in and of themselves; they become to us what we see them as being.” In other words, people make sense of their experiences based on their own beliefs about the world. We all tend to interpret things by fitting them into our own pre-existing frameworks of knowledge and understanding. Hence people are likely to fit their experience of jhāna into what they think, or believe, about jhāna, or what they think jhāna is like.

I think this is what I did; and this is evident in my descriptions of jhāna in Part One. I had read descriptions of jhāna as a progression of four levels, with specific jhāna factors associated with each level, and since that was what I expected, that is what I experienced. But I often wonder whether I would have understood them in that same manor, if I had not already read those descriptions. I will never know, obviously, but I am inclined to think I would not have come up with that particular framework. The reason I say that is because now, years later, my experience of jhāna is very different from how I first experienced it.

When I first experienced these states, they seemed absolutely incredible. I was simply astounded by their intense purity. But now, years later, they have become a normal part of my inner life, and I don’t pay them much attention. These incredible experiences have morphed into simple, everyday normality. When meditating nowadays, my efforts consist of trying to prevent discursive thought arising, and then trying to rest my mind calmly on the object of meditation. I do not think about this jhāna, or that jhāna, I do not pay particular attention to any of the jhāna factors, nor to any of the sensations associated with each jhāna, and I no longer experience that particular feeling of moving up from one jhāna to another, or moving to a higher level.

I have come to regard that familiar model of the four-levels of jhāna as a simple theoretical model; a useful over-simplification of a very complex underlying, multi-dimensional reality. For me now, it makes as much sense to regard jhāna as a continuum of increasing concentration, and as you go along that continuum, sometimes “these” characteristics arise, and sometimes “those” characteristics arise, which are to be observed with detached disinterest. But nothing is definite; nothing is certain.

And there is one thing that seems very different. At times, I now observe thought while in all the jhānas, including the fourth jhāna. And not just thought, but images, or ideas, or just knowing things. The mind is not as still as I used to think. I do not know how to explain this. Maybe when I am in a higher jhāna and thoughts arise, I slip down to the first jhāna—where thoughts are possible—but then I go back automatically to the higher jhāna when thinking stops. Although Leigh Brasington, in his interview with Richard Shankman (Shankman, 2008) says he thinks this is possible, I am not sure about this—it just seems like too much jumping around from one state to the another.

Or perhaps the traditional description of jhāna—with four levels of jhāna and specific jhāna factors associated with each one—is just over-simplistic, and inaccurate. Perhaps it is just a useful theoretical model, and like most theoretical models, it does not take full account of the complexity of what is described; namely the variety of different ways these states can materialize, nor of the flexibility or permeability of the boundaries between them.

Or maybe after years of jhāna practice, the mind is just much stronger and more capable of difficult mental feats. Just like a person who joins a gymnastics club; after years of hard training and dedicated practice, they will be able to perform much more difficult feats of physical strength or gymnastic agility compared to what they could have done when they started training. Perhaps regular use of these jhānas has resulted in a level of mental flexibility, or control, that I did not have before. And as a result, perhaps I am accessing more subtle, normally unconscious parts of my mind that I could before.

So, while I do not know why I now observe thoughts in jhānas, when I did not notice them at first, the simple fact is that thoughts, and other sorts of mental activity, do arise while in all the jhānas. The only discussion I have encountered of this is Jack Kornfiled in his interview with Richard Shankman. While Kornfield is describing jhāna, Shankman asks him to clarify, “There are no thoughts?” To which Kornfield replies:

Not absolutely, not at the level of jhāna I have practiced. It is not that there are never any thoughts, but for the most part it becomes really silent. It is like going from the windswept, weather-filled atmosphere, getting to the surface of the ocean, and then dropping down below the level of the water, like a scuba diver, into a completely silent and different dimension. While there are some reflections that might go by, it is a completely different state of consciousness.” (Shankman, 2008).

This simile of going from the weather-filled atmosphere and dropping into a silent world below the water, captures this very well. For me, there is thought in jhānas, but it is very different from our normal sense-sphere thought.

But there is much more. While writing most of the sections of Part Two of this book (including these very pages), I was obviously deeply involved in thinking about what I should say. Over that period, I attended a number of ten-day retreats, where I spend most time in the fourth jhāna, and I also kept a strong daily practice at home, sitting for two or three hours per day, largely in jhāna. While silently meditating in jhāna, focused on my sensations, either on retreat or at home, uninvited thoughts would unexpectedly pop into my mind about what to write. This happened many times. Some of those thoughts were quite simple, such as; “replace this word with that word;” but other thoughts were far more complex, “before that paragraph, add another paragraph explaining such-and-such.” Or “reorganize that whole section.” There were even times when I would draft, or rehearse the language of a section in my mind. I do not know whether I remained in jhāna when I was thinking about these things, but when I dismissed the thoughts, I was back in exactly the same mental state as when the thought first appeared. And later, when I came back to examine these ideas once I went back to my writing, these thoughts and ideas proved to be very insightful and important.

Of course, the reader is maybe wondering whether I was actually in the fourth jhāna; whether I was mistaken, and was really in the first jhāna. I wondered that myself, and I considered how I could actually test whether I was in jhāna or not when these thoughts arose, and if so, in which one. There is no such thing as an objective test of jhāna, of course, but I did eventually think of something. If I was fully settled in the fourth jhāna, as I believed I was, then I should be able to easily move up to the next level of concentration, namely the arūpa jhāna. So I set my mind on the mental idea of “infinite space,” and just tried to focus my mind and relax. An hour or so later, I did indeed enter the arūpa jhāna. Which means that I was in the fourth jhāna when all these very creative ideas arose.

It may not seem so strange that simple thoughts and images would arise now and again, in the fourth jhāna, but I do not know how to explain this extensive creative thinking: ideas just flowed.

However, one thing seems very clear about jhāna: namely that the mind has not stopped. Conscious thought has stopped, or is seriously reduced, but the mind is still functioning quite well, and perhaps even better, but out of conscious awareness. Of course, the mind is still running the automatic physical and mental process that it always does. These processes occur with little or no conscious effort. But it seems to me that the mind is also processing sensory and mental input; is evaluating complex situations; is still coming to conclsions; making decisions, and creating insight completely outside our conscious awareness.

In fact, I am beginning to believe that the mind works more efficiently when the conscious mind is still, as in jhāna. Insight arises more easily, and more readily. As explained above, this has happened frequently with insights related to my writing, but I have come to believe that it is also happening with insights regarding the nature of mind and matter; the understanding of anicca and anattā, as well insights supporting my own spiritual development in general.

I have come to believe that jhāna is a very perceptive, or receptive state, that gives us access to levels of thought, or levels of insight, that would not be accessible otherwise. This is why jhāna is so beneficial to our understanding of Dhmma. This same point is made by Bhante Gunaratana in his interview with Richard Shankmann (Shankmann, 2008), when he says; “only when you are in jhāna, not out of jhāna, can you see that most subtle reality in the body and mind.” Polk (2016) discusses this issue at some length, and attempts to relate this to current thinking in modern psychology about the nature of unconscious processing.

And most importantly, I assume that this is main reason that the Buddha was such a strong advocate of jhāna. It is simply a very insightful state.

The Importance of Effort

The key to attaining jhāna, for me, was increasing the effort to improve my concentration. That is all that changed. I significantly increased my level of effort. Then, once I got on the jhāna train, it just seemed to carry me along. All I did was try hard to keep focused on the object of meditation. I had no special instruction and no special knowledge. It was hard work at first, but as my concentration increased, it became easier. Each state naturally developed into the next. My simple advice is that meditators should try to make a lot more effort. That worked for me, and it seems reasonable that it will work for others. No guarantee, of course. Some may find it easier than I did; others may find it harder; and some may never attain jhāna. We do not know. But to say it again, something that is possible for one is likely possible for others.

So what exactly did I do? Nothing special. In Part One, I have described how, on that first course, I put my attention on the sensation on the upper lip, trying every microsecond to drill my mind into that sensation. It was hard work, and I fought hard, with unrelenting effort, for each and every mind moment. I made some serious mistakes, too, and created a lot of agitation and tension in the process. It took me time to learn how to make the necessary effort in a relaxed manner, and time to learn how to maintain that elevated level of effort. It takes discipline. The mind does not like it. It is a skill I had to learn, and one I am still learning. The result was one-pointed concentration, and that led naturally and automatically to jhāna. But the instruction is very simple: “make more effort.” That’s all. If there is a secret sauce, that is it.

Although most of my experience is in the U Ba Khin tradition, I think it is reasonable to suppose that this applies equally to vipassanā meditators in other traditions, whether Mahāsi Sayadaw, Pa Auk, Thai Forest, or others. In all cases, we are observing mind and matter, trying to develop awareness of their true nature, anicca. And we are all working within the framework of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. It seems to me that regardless of exactly where we focus our attention, if we can reach one-pointed concentration, then jhāna will follow. I think this would also apply equally well to meditators whose main practice is ānāpāna.

I mainly focused my attention on physical sensations to attain jhāna, but not exclusively. At one time, many years ago, I also attained jhāna by focusing on the light that appeared in my mind’s eye, and on another occasion I attained jhāna by focusing on the thought that all beings should be happy. So why not other objects of attention? There are many other meditation traditions, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. If it is one-pointed concentration that leads to jhāna, and strong effort is what leads to that level of concentration, then it seems reasonable to assume that meditators in any tradition could benefit from increased effort. I cannot claim this to be actually true, since it is beyond my experience, but it seems reasonable to suppose so. Thus, to all meditators, in any tradition, I would say: “give it a try.” It might work for you. And surely no harm can be done by working hard and building concentration.

However, as one friend insisted, I am not the only meditator who has made strong efforts. Other meditators also make effort, yet they do not attain jhāna. This is obviously true, and I have thought long and hard about it. There are a number of possible reasons for this. I think it is possible that I applied the effort much more strongly, or perhaps somewhat differently, than many other meditators. Below I want to discuss three things regarding my understanding of effort. But beyond that, I think there are some important psychological characteristics that may be preventing serious meditators from attaining jhāna even though they have the innate ability and make the required level of effort. There are two such psychological barriers that I want to discuss.

Firstly, regarding effort, there are many different levels of effort. My father was a very hard-working man. Brought up in poverty during the Depression, he believed that hard work was the key to success. As a teenager, I worked with him. When he worked, it was with determined and focused effort. It was hard to keep up with him. If you wanted a tea break, “certainly get yourself a cup of tea, but don’t stop working.” A cigarette? No problem, but keep working. Chat to friends? As much as you like, but don’t slow down. I can still hear his voice to this day: “C’mon, get back to work.” He taught me how to work hard with sustained focus, something for which I am deeply grateful.

He used to joke that there are twelve different speeds of working, and that most people who think they are working hard are not working anywhere near as hard as they could. He was right. You can see this in daily life if you look around. Watch people working in an office, a store, a building site, or wherever. Very few people work as hard as they could. Most people find a comfortable pace and stick with that. Some do work harder than others, obviously, but still nowhere near what is possible. Most people have little idea what really hard work is, and little experience of doing it.

There is also considerable evidence that quieting the mind to reach a state of one-pointed concentration requires tremendous effort. There is an old simile, found in the ancient texts, in which the process of developing one-pointed concentration is likened to taming an angry, wild bull. The bull is tamed by tying a rope around its neck and fixing that rope to a stake, the rope being ānāpāna, mindfulness of breathing. The bull lunges, jumps, kicks, and thrashes around with its enormous strength, trying everything it can to break free and escape, but the rope holds it tight and brings it back repeatedly. After a long struggle, the bull slowly quietens down. Eventually, it simply lies down next to the stake.

The tremendous power of that wild bull is then brought under the control of the meditator, who can use that power in meditation to cut the bonds that bind us to a life of dukkha, misery. This is a very dramatic image, but it is exactly how I felt about the struggle to get my mind sufficiently concentrated to enter jhāna.

It takes far more effort than most people realize to get the mind under control, to a one-pointed state. In previous meditation retreats, I had worked steadily and comfortably, but not hard enough. Working at an easy, comfortable pace, you can get fairly concentrated—the mad bull does quieten down a lot—but it never gets completely quiet. It was not until I sat that first twenty-day course, when I significantly increased my effort, that I managed to quieten this wild bull of a mind. That is when the results came. The initial effort required to reach the point where jhāna arises is considerable, but the benefits are enormous.

Secondly, the effort has to be directed at improving concentration (samādhi), not just at improving continuity of awareness (sati). I never used to distinguish between these two when meditating. I tried hard to reach a point where my mind would mostly stay on the object of meditation—there might be a few thoughts now and again, but not strong enough to pull my mind away—and then I assumed that I had good concentration. I would then level off into a pleasant, relaxed, comfortable state. That was a mistake.

Continuity of awareness is important, of course, and is clearly related to good concentration, but the two are different. Having reached a point where awareness is mostly continuous, there is still a need to build concentration. You can use this awareness to observe and monitor the effort you are making, and through this continual awareness you can manage the entire meditation process. Building concentration requires ongoing effort to make the mind finer and finer, and to have it rest more firmly on the object of meditation.

It took me a long time to learn how to build concentration, and I made many mistakes. That is why I experienced so much tension on my second retreat. I was pushing hard, trying to increase my concentration, but pushing hard in the wrong way. The effort needs to be continual and focused, but relaxed, without tension. This has been an ongoing challenge for me, and still is.

It is hard to describe exactly how to increase concentration, but all I can suggest is to choose as subtle an object as possible, gently lay the mind onto the object of meditation, and then work hard to keep the attention on that object every mind moment—every single mind moment. Continual vigilance is important. As your concentration gets stronger, if you observe carefully, you may notice that the mind is moving on and off the object of attention, flickering, very rapidly, very subtly. Work hard to stop that flickering and encourage the mind to simply rest still, laying continually on the object of meditation. The stronger the concentration, the more readily attention will rest there.

The third point about effort is not just that the Buddha frequently pointed out the importance of effort—determined, focused, continual effort—but how he described that effort. Right Effort (sammā-vāyāma) is one factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, and it seems relevant to me that it appears in the meditation (bhāvanā) section of the Path, along with Right Concentration (sammā-samādhi) and Right Awareness (sammā-sati). Right Effort relates directly to our efforts while meditating. It is what we have to do in every single mind moment. Every single mind moment!

The Buddha described four types of Right Effort: the effort to attain desirable mental states; the effort to maintain these desirable mental states; the effort to remove undesirable mental states; and the effort to prevent the return of these undesirable mental states.

To stress again, Right Effort is something we do while meditating, moment by moment. It is simply the continual, ongoing effort to place our attention on the chosen object of meditation—the sensation on the upper lip, in my case—and the moment-by-moment effort to keep it there without letting it slip away. It is the continual, ongoing effort to prevent other thoughts from intruding and to let go of them as soon as they do. It is the continual effort to keep the mind—this wild bull—under control.

This effort needs to be continually applied and then continually re-applied—every single moment. It is hard work. Very hard work.

Monitoring every moment is also very important. I have mentioned a number of times that when in jhāna I was always aware of what was happening, and I felt as though I still had full executive control of my meditation. This is key. We need to be fully aware of what is happening—monitoring our effort and our concentration continually. I think of this as executive control. We should be watching like a hawk, and any deviation from the task at hand should be dealt with immediately. This is sammā-sati (Right Awareness). Vipassanā requires this continual awareness of the mind and mental events.

On a side note, this is why I reject the idea of jhāna as a state of deep absorption in which the mind is totally lost in the object of meditation, as Buddhaghosa claimed. Such absorption may be possible, for all I know, but in every case in which I experienced jhāna, I had full awareness of what was happening and retained the ability to direct my meditation as I wished. In other words, I had strong sati, awareness. There was nothing “absorbed” about it. The mind was unified within itself and resting on the object of attention, not absorbed into it.

But I do want to say one more thing about effort. The task is to work hard and concentrate the mind—that is all. We should not be trying to attain anything from it, and even less should we be craving jhāna. The hard effort, and the concentration that follows, should be regarded as ends in themselves. The only achievement to celebrate is one more mind moment on task—and then another.

So, to summarize this discussion of effort: the aim is to develop sammā-samādhi (Right Concentration), which the Buddha repeatedly said means jhāna. In order to do so, I believe we need to focus on both sammā-vāyāma (Right Effort) and sammā-sati (Right Awareness). And in order to develop the necessary level of concentration, we must make far more sustained effort than most people realize. And we should do this with no desire for success. This is my opinion about effort.

Impediments to Success

However, I also believe that lack of sufficient effort, or effort of the wrong type, is not the only reason that meditators do not attain jhāna. It may not even be the main reason. There are clearly other powerful psychological factors at work. Two obvious possibilities are: firstly, that we need to believe it is possible to attain jhāna; and secondly, we need to allow jhāna to arise and nurture it when it does. I wish to discuss both of these.

As is obvious to us all, our beliefs have a considerable effect on how we interpret our experiences of the world. Christians tend to interpret their experiences in terms of their Christian beliefs. The same applies to Buddhists; they interpret their experience in terms of their Buddhist beliefs. This is true not only for religious beliefs, but whatever our beliefs, whether about science, politics, what we learned at school, or our beliefs about other people; our beliefs form a sort of framework into which we attempt to incorporate all our experiences. This is quite natural.

However, I believe this tendency goes much deeper than just effecting how we interpret our experiences. I think that what we believe may also affect what we actually experience. At least on a mental level. The reason I hold that view is because of an experience I had during the time I was taking those long courses, described in Part One.

On the last day of the fourth of those meditation courses, the one in which I first experienced the arupa jhānas, I did something completely new. In the U Ba Khin tradition, it is customary at the end of every course—usually the day before the course ends—for all participants to sit together after the breakfast break and practice mettā-bhāvanā, meditation to generate loving-kindness, to wish that all beings be well and happy, and to share our merits. At the end of this sitting, the vow of silence is lifted. On the morning of mettā day, before breakfast, it is my own personal habit to practice mettā alone for some time in preparation. I like to get warmed up before the event. On this occasion, I remembered that I had read in the Visuddhimagga that some meditation objects are suitable for certain jhānas but not for others, and that with mettā it is possible to attain the first jhāna, but not beyond that.

And so, in the quiet of my own cell, I began practicing mettā, holding the thought, “May all beings be happy.” After some time, I did indeed enter the first jhāna while focusing on this thought. I was able to remain in this state for an hour or so, until breakfast. Interestingly, although my concentration was very strong, stronger than at any other time in my life, before or since—recall that I had been meditating in the fourth jhāna all day long for almost a month, and I had spent four or five of those days in the arupa jhānas—yet I did not progress beyond the first jhāna. Even though I had normally moved naturally into a higher jhāna, as had happened automatically many times every day, yet I remained in the first jhāna for the whole of the time practicing metta.

I assumed at the time that, since mettā is essentially a thought, it is only possible in the first jhāna, which allows discursive thought, but not possible in any of the others, since they don’t allow thought. So that was why I had not progressed to the other jhānas. I felt very reassured that I was able to personally verify something I had found in an obscure ancient text. Such simple experiences, I told myself, gave me a strong feeling of confidence. I congratulated myself on being such a clever chap, such a wonderful meditator, so developed in dhamma that I could personally check out the validity of obscure ideas I found in ancient meditation manuals. Puffed up with pride, I even wrote this up in an early draft of my narrative. What a fool I was!

A kind reviewer of that draft pointed out to me that I had made a mistake, and that my recollection of what Buddhaghosa wrote in the Visuddhimagga was mistaken. He told me that in fact, the Visuddhimagga says that with mettā as the topic of meditation, it is possible to attain the first, second and third jhānas, but not the fourth. I checked this myself, and found he was correct. I was astounded. How come that when I had such powerful concentration, that for the previous twenty-seven days, every time I had entered the first jhāna I had then automatically, with no conscious effort, progressed up to the fourth jhāna—and not just once a day, but many times a day—how come on that occasion I had not done so, even though I now know that it was entirely possible for me to have done so. Why did I not progress to the other jhānas as before? What had prevented me? The obvious explanation is that since I believed it was not possible to enter the second and third jhānas, then I didn’t. I believed I would stay in the first jhāna, so I did. In other words, my beliefs had clearly determined what states arose in my mind.

Does the same thing apply to other meditators? That seems entirely possible; indeed likely. Most vipassanā students have been told repeatedly—sometimes explicitly, but often implicitly—that they will not attain jhāna; that jhāna is a different path. This is what they have been taught by those teachers and writers that they trust. This is the standard belief in the vipassanā community. Could it be that since most meditators believe that they will not experience these states of mind, then these states don’t arise; or at least they ignore the obvious signs when they appear? This is speculation on my part, but this seems very likely to me. Perhaps this explains why more people don’t get jhāna.

And then a second, related explanation arises. Namely, if jhāna does arise, will they welcome it and allow themselves to practice it? Or will they push it aside? In my opinion, many serious vipassanā students do not allow themselves to practice it. Perhaps they think it is forbidden territory; perhaps they think they are falling off the path; or think that they are indulging in forbidden pleasure. Perhaps they are subject to the taboo which I mentioned at the start of this book. I am not entirely sure how they think about it, but somehow, they feel that they should not indulge in these states. A conversation with an old friend led me to this conclusion.

A while ago, many years after those courses described in Part One, I was having dinner at home with an old friend. She is a very intelligent woman, a successful professional, well versed in Buddhist teaching, a life-long vipassanā meditator, and an assistant teacher in the U Ba Khin tradition. I told her my view that jhāna should be incorporated into our practice. After some discussion, she told me that she had also experienced jhāna, but that she had dismissed it, and decided to stay away from it. She offered no details, nor did I ask for any. But for some reason, during her meditation, when jhāna arose in her consciousness, she had rejected it. Such self censorship may be common. Perhaps other meditators feel the same about this topic. It is a taboo topic, so people may naturally tend to avoid it or hide it, and if it does arise, they may be inclined to push it away.

When I first experienced jhāna, I felt something similar. Although I did not reject it, I did hide it. I did not tell anyone for many years. It felt to me rather like a guilty pleasure. I kept it secret, hidden away and no one knew. My secret vice! At times I felt as though I was disrespecting my teachers, that I was being ungrateful to them, and that I was letting the team down, or falling off the path. Perhaps I was afraid of censure by my peers. These complex feelings persisted long after I had learned that jhāna was a beneficial development; long after I knew that jhāna makes vipassanā much stronger. Swimming against the stream is always difficult, and peer pressure is a powerful force.

Again, this is speculation on my part, but perhaps this is another reason why more people don’t get jhāna. It’s a taboo, so they reject it. This seems very likely to me.

To summarize, I believe that these two psychological explanations—meditators do not believe jhāna can arise, or they do not give themselves permission to accept it when it does—account for the fact that many serious meditators, despite making concerted effort, still do not get the benefit of jhāna. Not only must meditators believe that attaining jhāna is quite possible, and beneficial, but they must also give themselves full permission to accept it, and integrate that jhāna into their practice.

So, my dear readers, please believe that jhāna is possible, that it is beneficial for the practice of vipassanā, work hard to attain it, cultivate it and be prepared to incorporate it into your practice. It is a very powerful tool. We must give ourselves permission to use jhāna. And then decide for ourselves how to use it, in whatever way makes sense to us. Some meditators may combine jhāna and vipassanā into one integrated practice, as I have done, or they may keep them as two quite separate practices, if that makes more sense. The important thing to remember is that jhāna sharpens the mind considerably, and that sharpened concentration can then be used to strengthen vipassanā, whether the two are combined together, or they are practiced separately.

To get back to my basic advice about attaining jhāna: work hard and just let nature take its course. Whatever happens should be observed and accepted with equanimity. We should not be trying to attain anything. I believe it is better to think of jhāna as signposts indicating progress rather than as goals to be achieved. They will come when the mind is ready. Of course, the benefits of jhāna are immense, and our meditation is greatly strengthened when we attain them, but in the final analysis they are no more than steps along the way—or tools we use. Craving for meditative results, such as jhāna, is to fall off the path. Craving for jhāna is no better than craving for anything else. Craving is craving. What we want is hard, continual, sustained effort—and nothing more.

And if we do attain jhāna, while we should be pleased with our progress, we should not become attached to it. We will likely lose it again. Sometimes we may have jhāna; sometimes we may not. Just keep working hard. I also believe that it is a great error to analyze these states too much. They are of immense theoretical interest, of course, and are largely unknown to science. It is natural to want to understand them and their subtle differences. Meditators may want to spend some time investigating them—but not too much. We should not become distracted studying the signposts.

That is all the advice I have about how to attain jhāna.

Maintaining Jhāna in Daily Life

However, if I were reading this chapter, rather than writing it, at this point, there is one question that would be clamoring for attention at the front of my mind. Namely:

All the discussion so far had been about practicing jhāna while in an intensive meditation retreat. So if I do attain jhāna while on retreat, can I then bring that out of the retreat into my daily practice?

The obvious answer is that I don’t know; everyone is different. Obviously, it would depend on the strength of a person’s daily practice. But speaking generally, I think there is both good news and bad news. The good news it that I know that it is possible to maintain jhāna in daily practice. The bad news is that I also believe that it requires a level of commitment and discipline that would be difficult for most people with family and work responsibilities But if a meditator is successful in maintaining jhāna, then daily life is much improved with that level of control over the mind.

My own experience is mixed in this regard. Over the course of a lifetime of practice, and many meditation retreats of varying length, I have usually found it difficult to maintain strong concentration after leaving a course. There are two reasons for that.

Firstly, the transition from meditation retreat back to daily life is often a busy period, and requires some mental adjustment. We have to travel back home, usually a flight or a long drive. This can take time—a whole day, or even longer. Then we are immediately presented with all the responsibilities that have accumulated during our absence These also takes time and a great deal of attention, and keep us busy for days. So the first challenge is to maintain these higher levels of concentration during these days of transition back to the outside world. If we miss sitting for a day or two, or get too caught up in thinking about what has to be done, that wonderful concentration that we worked so hard to achieve simply evaporates.

Secondly, if we do manage to bring our strong concentration back home to our daily practice, how do we maintain it? Most serious meditators I know try to sit two hours a day. This is a considerable challenge for many, and certainly has been a challenge for me. Two hours a day, an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, has always been difficult for me; I have missed many sittings, and when I did sit, my monkey mind wandered here and there, and I got only short periods with my mind on task. Daily sittings often felt like little more than empty ritual. And even when I am being very conscientious, it takes me an hour or so to quieten the mind, and then the sitting is over. Later in life, I found one very useful solution to that. I like to meditate for one session of two hours every morning, rather than sitting an hour morning and an hour evening. I go to bed early, then get up at five am. I then sit for two hours, and start my day at seven am. During my sitting, it usually takes me an hour or so to quieten the mind and build my concentration, and then during the second hour, I get to practice with good concentration. So I get one hour of strong meditation every day. This helps me maintain a much stronger practice.

I help motivate myself by remembering the old Indian saying that Goenkaji quotes, “while the world sleeps, the yogi is awake!” This allows me to maintain the romantic notion that I am some sort of great yogi, meditating aloof from the world. Such silly ideas can be very helpful!

Often, this two-hour session once a day is enough to maintain the first jhāna in my daily practice. But not always. I have to monitor myself closely, and sometimes I need to sit an extra hour or two, to get my mind back on track. So perhaps the answer is that with three hours meditation a day, I can comfortably maintain the level of jhāna that I was able to bring back from the course. To maintain the higher jhānas, it might be necessary to sit more, or make more effort. But slowly and surely, as I practice more, I get better at maintaining jhāna in my daily practice. I could never have maintained this level of effort when I was working, but now I am retired, and my practice has become a much more important part of my life, I do find it is possible to maintain jhāna in daily life.

And remember, it is far easier, and takes far less effort, to maintain jhāna once you have it, than it is to attain it in the first place. So if a meditator can successfully bring the jhāna back from a retreat, and then successfully incorporate that into their daily practice, the results are certainly worth the effort.

In Chapter Four, I described how the experience of jhāna on those long silent retreats had significantly improved both my daily practice, and the general quality of my life. I experienced better concentration, more mindfulness, more equanimity, and far fewer unwholesome mental states than I had experienced before. My quality of life was significantly improved simply because of the experience of jhāna on those retreats. Even though, at that time, I still had a demanding and busy professional life, and hence I was not able to keep a strong enough daily practice to maintain the jhānas.

Later, after retirement, when I learned how to maintain the jhānas in my daily practice, the result was a second step up in the quality of both my daily practice and my daily life. It took me some time to figure it out, but the key was quite simple; just learn to maintain a sufficiently high level of effort. Again, effort was the key! The results were wonderful, and resulted in a further significant improvement in the quality of my daily life.

To generalize from my own experience, that high level of concentration and equanimity that we develop during daily meditation in jhāna leaks out into everyday life. We become much calmer, wiser, and much happier. The mind still runs around during the day, of course, but much less, and with fewer troublesome or unwholesome thoughts. We live with significantly improved mindfulness and equanimity all day long, and experiencing pleasant sensation is our normal state of being. The world around is in chaos, people are running about, fussing and fretting around us, and we stand like a rock, an island in the storm. A lovely idea! Perhaps I am getting a little bit too poetic again, but the truth is that life is much better when we have control of the mind. And jhāna gives us that—a stable, solid platform on which to build a truly wonderful life.

Summary Advice on Using Jhāna

Having attained jhāna, I needed what the Buddha called a kalyāṇa-mitta—a good friend, a more senior meditator—to advise me how to use this in my meditation. He recommended that all meditators seek such a guide. I did not have the benefit of such a person. But if I had, below is the advice I think I needed to work with jhāna. Perhaps it will help others.

Advice on Using Jhāna

So, once the mind has reached a one-pointed state, consciousness naturally changes into a state called jhāna, and certain characteristics become more prominent, and it becomes much easier to maintain that state. You will experience very strong pleasant sensations throughout the body. Remain calm and focused, and keep working on your concentration until you reach a point where thought no longer arises and you are fully focused on sensations.

These states are both signs indicating progress and powerful tools that will help you do vipassanā much more effectively. The important thing is not to become distracted by them. Keep the mind concentrated and focused on the task at hand—which is awareness of sensations and their changing, insubstantial nature.

You do not need to practice vipassanā differently from how you practiced before; you will simply be practicing it better. The level of jhāna, and which characteristics are prominent in which jhāna, are not important. With practice, such distinctions may become clearer, and you may notice them, but this is not necessary—they are not worth undue attention. Building one-pointed concentration through attention to body sensations, and knowing their nature, is what matters.

However, you do need to manage your concentration. You need to decide how much you should focus on developing and maintaining your level of concentration, and how much you can go through the body, observing your sensations. When observing sensations, whether going through the body part by part, sweeping through the whole body, or just observing the whole corporeal structure, you may find your mind becoming more scattered, losing concentration. So go back to building concentration. How much you focus on building concentration depends on how easily you can maintain your mind on task. Remember, just because the mind is in jhāna doesn’t mean it will constantly stay on the desired object of meditation. You need constant vigilance; constant sati to manage your meditation. You will probably find it takes less effort to maintain your concentration than it took to develop it in the first place. Good. Perhaps you can relax a little and enjoy your meditation. But don’t relax too much. Constant vigilance is still required.

Hard, sustained effort is how concentration is built, and how it is maintained; continual awareness is how you monitor and manage the process. Cultivate this triad—Right Effort (sammā-vāyāma), Right Concentration (sammā-samādhi), and Right Awareness (sammā-sati)—in every mind moment. At all times. This is the way the Buddha taught meditation.

Enjoy the peace and purity of these states, but do not forget that they are impermanent, like everything else. You have them now, but may not have them later. Perhaps they will come and go. Keep your attention on the arising and passing away of sensations within the body, as well as the arising and passing away of mind moments. Keep knowing their nature: they are anicca, constantly changing; they are dukkha, misery; and they are anattā, not you. There is nothing substantial in there; it is all just an impersonal process.

And then enjoy those wonderful physical and mental states. Let them become your daily friends. These are the joys of a good Dhamma life. The Buddha called this “a pleasant abiding” and it certainly is.

This is the best I can offer. I have to say it feels very inadequate for such an important complex task, but perhaps it may help some folks. I sincerely hope so. Because I did not have such a good friend, I made many mistakes. I wasted much time trying to understand these various states, thinking about them, analyzing them, and comparing them far too much. I became trapped in craving for them and created huge amounts of physical tension as a result. I blundered around trying to figure out how to fit them into my practice. I hope this will help other meditators benefit from my experience, and avoid some of these silly mistakes.

To conclude, I believe that serious vipassanā students should make a strong effort to develop one-pointed concentration, and if jhāna arises, they should use this new form of consciousness to strengthen their practice. But even if jhāna does not arise, increased concentration is beneficial in itself. All meditators can benefit from increasing their level of concentration.

And if increased effort does in fact quieten the mind and leads to jhāna, meditators can then decide for themselves whether the result was worth the effort. I am sure many would be very pleased with the results.

To every one of my peers, and to all meditators, I would simply say: “Do not just believe what I say—try it, and then decide for yourself.” There is no downside to working harder, and no downside to getting stronger concentration.

End of Chapter 5

Next chapter:

Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

Previous chapter:

Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed Me

Reading Time: about 21 mins. 4,200 words.

Changes to My Life

I am writing this a number of years after the events I described in Part One. Now, I can look back on these experiences and reflect on what happened, what I learned, and how this affected my life. I have also had time to consider carefully the many questions that naturally arose from these unexpected events.

To summarize: over six silent vipassanā meditation courses, each lasting twenty to thirty days, jhāna arose in all of them. In two retreats, I spent most of my time working in the first jhāna but did not progress beyond it; in the other four retreats, I attained all four jhānas and spent most of my time in the fourth jhāna. Furthermore, in two of these four, after attaining the fourth jhāna, I also experienced all four arūpas—or arūpa-jhānas, as they are sometimes called. Across these six retreats, I likely spent more time in the fourth jhāna than in all the other states combined.

Simply spending time in these states of higher consciousness was a wonderful and unforgettable spiritual experience. However, the most important point is that, in all four rupa jhānas, I was able to continue my vipassanā meditation in the normal manner. I practiced strictly according to the instructions of my teachers in the U Ba Khin tradition—both those I had met and those whose words I had read. The only difference from my earlier meditation before I attained jhāna was that my mind was no longer focused on external senses, but fully concentrated on the internal world of mind and matter. The meditation was far more focused, far more powerful, and, I believe, far more spiritually productive.

I had not intended to work toward attaining jhāna. I had never imagined that vipassanā meditators could reach jhāna during their normal practice, let alone that vipassanā could be practiced while in jhāna. I was completely surprised and did not know what to do about it; I was swept along by forces I did not understand. At the time, I recognized that the experience of jhāna was a wonderful privilege—a remarkable spiritual experience. Yet I had no idea how to use these powerful states in my practice. In retrospect, I now believe I should have simply accepted them as a natural development and continued my practice as before. Instead, I spent far too much time focusing on the jhānas themselves, trying to understand what they were, how they differed, and how to move between them.

It is clear that these experiences had a deeply profound effect on my life. Indeed, they turned my entire belief system upside down. Let me explain some of these important effects. As I have already mentioned, the experience itself was incredible and deeply meaningful, leaving me with a great sense of privilege and gratitude for having had such good fortune. Without a doubt, this is one of the defining events of my life. The impact has been considerable, both in terms of my feelings about the world in general and my understanding of the Dhamma, the Buddha’s Eightfold Path, and the tradition in which I practice.

But first, before taking about the many benefits, I must address a very serious danger of attaining jhāna; namely the issue of ego. Very few people get to experience these states, and it is hard to exaggerate how special this makes one feel—or how quickly pride can rear its ugly head. It is important to be aware of this and to counter such unwholesome states of mind. The great benefit of strong concentration, and the jhānas that follow, is that they help us eradicate impure states of mind. The worst thing that can happens is that these jhānas should lead to an increase in impurities, through inflated ego and pride. This requires constant vigilance. My antidote has been to try to cultivate thoughts of gratitude and humility. I have to constantly try to remind myself to be grateful for these wonderful experiences, which arose naturally as the result of my effort—simple cause and effect, nothing more. I have tried to maintain the understanding that I have been fortunate, rather than allow myself to think that I am special. Ego is a powerful force that must be confronted. It is very important to maintain a sense of humility; which is much easier said than done, under the circumstances.

As for the benefits, they are considerable. I believe that my regular meditation practice has improved enormously. My concentration is far better, both in daily life and during meditation. I feel that I have a much deeper understanding of the Dhamma. My whole being seems calmer, wiser, and more centered, despite the fact that, as a householder, my responsibilities have often kept me from intensive meditation. Metta arises more easily, and I experience greater equanimity, becoming less troubled by the vicissitudes of life and the challenges of old age. I am more grounded in wholesome states of mind and experience far fewer negative states. My general mindfulness has significantly improved. In my daily practice, both my concentration and my mindfulness has improved markedly. Moreover, I am much more skilled at bringing my mind under control and enhancing my focus. My daily practice feels far more productive. and perhaps more importantly, my awareness of anicca has improved considerably. I believe that practicing vipassanā in these higher states of consciousness has been the cause of these significant changes.

And, not only is my daily practice much stronger, it is also far more enjoyable. The Buddha called jhāna “a pleasant abiding;” a pleasant state in which to spend time. It is certainly that. Not only does the meditator enjoy pleasant physical sensations, but also experiences a mental, or emotional, feeling of well-being. Over the course of my life, I have found it relatively easy to maintain good sīla, but maintaining a daily meditation practice has been much more challenging. It requires considerable discipline, and at times family or career responsibilities have pushed the meditation aside. And to be frank, sometimes it was just my hobbies or other interests that pulled me away. That has all changed. Meditation has become such a joy that I have no difficulty keeping a strong daily practice. That is a considerable benefit in itself. But this pleasure in my meditation practice has also leaked out into my daily life. Life is simply far more pleasant, far more enjoyable, far richer and far more meaningful.

I also have a much deeper, much more sophisticated understanding of mind and matter (nāmarūpa). As explained earlier, the Buddha’s teaching is that a human being—the totality of a person—consists of four mental components (nāma), which are viññāṇa (consciousness), saññā (cognition), vedanā (feelings) and saṅkhāra (reactions), as well as one physical component, rūpa (matter). Notice that according to this understanding of what comprises a human being, vedanā (feelings or sensations) are part of the mind. This always left me with a question; namely if the sensations I feel throughout the body are part of my mind, as the Buddha teaches, what do I make of the obvious physical sensations, such as sweat running down my skin, the hardness of my seat, or the pain in my knees after sitting cross-legged for long periods. Surely these are physical sensations, and are part of my body, not part of my mind. I can now see a clear distinction between the physical sensations of my body and the vedanā of my mind. When I sit, obvious physical sensation are there, and I can associate those with specific parts of my body. But I am also enveloped in a cloud of sensation that is not associated with particular parts of my body. This is pervasive throughout my whole physical structure, but not closely associated with any one part of it. This is vedanā, a constituent of the mind. This became quite obvious while in jhāna.

Jhāna has also allowed me to see the workings of the mind much better. Once the mind becomes one-pointed, and thoughts stop arising and the monkey mind stops flitting here and there, we experience a wonderful inner quiet: a one-pointed mind. I used to assume that this meant that the mind had stopped. After a while, it became obvious that the mind had not stopped, not at all, but rather that it is only the conscious mind that has stopped. The mind itself is still working away, outside conscious awareness. It is still knowing things, collecting information, processing that information, making decisions, planning and so forth. Although it is not possible to observe this directly, at least not for me, it is clear that it is happening, and that this is what is guiding my life—somehow that inner quiet is not quite as quiet as I first thought. The mind is in a continual process of flux, with mental phenomena arising and passing away. Anicca is very clear.

A similar thing happens with emotions. Let us say that I am aroused about something—interested, fearful, annoyed, excited, or whatever—normally this would lead to a considerable amount of conscious mental activity, the mind flitting here and there thinking, speculating, imagining and such like. If I then quieten my conscious mind though meditation, and enter jhāna, all that conscious mental activity will stop, but it is still possible to sense the underlying agitation still bubbling away, in the unconscious mind.

It has become clear just how little we actually need our conscious minds in order to function normally in our lives. Everything seems to be managed perfectly well without ‘my’ input.

Working with jhāna has also given me tremendous confidence in the teachings of the Buddha and the Eightfold Path. For reasons I do not fully understand, I have had confidence in the Buddha since I first encountered his ideas, long before I began meditating. This confidence has been an important guiding force in my life. However, it is now reinforced by direct experience. I have come to understand, through my own experience, that many of his teachings are true. Many of us have read ancient texts filled with dry technical terms. We are told that these teachings are important, but they often seem obscure, whether in Pāli or English, and appear disconnected from our personal practice. The jhāna experience brought many of these teachings to life. I now understand them on a personal, experiential level. This is bhāvanā-maya paññā—wisdom through personal experience.

I have no doubts about the jhānas—their existence, nature, or qualities. They are familiar friends. As I explained above, the jhāna factors vitakka and vicāra—thought conception and discursive thinking—are no longer abstract ideas, as they once were, but real phenomena. I now understand what concentration is, how it develops, and how it differs from awareness. I know what equanimity is and why the Buddha valued it so highly. These experiences have given me tremendous confidence in the Buddha and his teachings. It is all true! I know because I have experienced it—or at least some of it. That confidence is a wonderful feeling.

The future also seems more assured. I cannot claim to definitively believe in the Theravāda idea of saṃsāra—the cycle of life and death through many realms of existence—nor in the workings of kamma over numerous lifetimes. Perhaps it is true; perhaps not. I will know only if and when I experience it to be true. But whether true or not, it is a sensible framework on which to base one’s life, and I have always tried to live as though it were true. If it is true, the seeds sown during these six retreats will bear wonderful fruits in future lives, giving me a deep sense of well-being. If it is not true and there is nothing after death, then I have lived a rich and meaningful life in the here and now.

These experiences have also significantly changed my understanding of life itself. Evolutionary biologists describe the development of life as a process driven by natural selection: organisms with advantageous traits reproduce more successfully, passing on their genes, so that these traits are propagated over long periods, eventually leading to new life forms. This is the conventional biological explanation. Previously, I believed that all life I had observed, in all its diversity, could be explained in this way. Yet it seems evident to me that jhāna cannot be accounted for by evolution through natural selection. As far as we know, jhāna arises in only a tiny fraction of humans and offers no adaptive advantage in the conventional sense. Moreover, most of those who attain jhāna are celibate monks or ascetics, who generally do not propagate their genes. Jhāna appears to be an integral aspect of consciousness that cannot have arisen through known biological processes. Through my own experience, I have come to know that there is much more to life than current biology can explain.

Understanding of Dhamma

The most significant changes, however, are in my understanding of our practice and how we relate to the Buddha’s teachings. I now appreciate the enormous impact of developing strong concentration, which can lead to highly beneficial states of consciousness and, in turn, turbocharge our vipassanā practice. I also have a new understanding of the relationship between vipassanā and ānāpāna, and how these practices work together with jhāna. Finally, I feel I better understand how all of this relates to the Buddha’s teachings. Let me explain each point in turn.

Regarding concentration, it is widely accepted that the more concentrated the mind, the better the meditation. U Ba Khin (1981) states that explicitly, and emphasizes that building concentration should be a central focus of our efforts. I certainly have always believed this to be true. Yet progress is not linear. I found that as the mind becomes increasingly concentrated, it naturally shifts into a different state of consciousness. These states can be regarded as milestones, which indeed they are, indicating the depth of our concentration—but they are far more than that. The consciousness of jhāna is qualitatively different from ordinary sense-sphere consciousness and is far more attuned to observing both sensations and mental processes. This is called Fine-Material consciousness in the Abhidhamma. Unlike ordinary consciousness, which focuses on the senses, this consciousness is inward-focused and ideal for vipassanā. By developing concentration, we not only gain the benefits of improved focus, but we also enter states of consciousness that greatly enhance our ability to practice vipassanā. The extra effort to improve concentration thus provides a double benefit—two for the price of one.

Curiosity about the nature of these different states of consciousness is natural in such circumstances, but for me, it became something of a distraction. They are fascinating phenomena, and I spent too much time trying to understand and analyze them rather than using them for my practice. Some simple guidelines would have been helpful.

It is difficult to explain the difference between the two types of consciousness: namely normal sense consciousness, in which we live our daily lives, and the fine-material consciousness of the jhānas. Simply put, jhāna consciousness is far more suitable for meditation—very much so! Ancient texts often use similes to explain complex concepts. When considering the difference between vipassanā practiced in normal sense-sphere consciousness and vipassanā practiced in the fine-material sphere of jhāna consciousness, one simile comes to mind. Imagine a long journey along an old dirt road, full of ruts and potholes, while you bump and rattle along in a rusty old truck. This represents vipassanā in normal sense-sphere consciousness. Now imagine speeding down a high-speed freeway, resting comfortably in a silent, air-conditioned luxury car. This represents vipassanā in jhāna consciousness. The destination may be the same, but the experience for the traveler is vastly different.

I also have a different understanding of ānāpāna and its relationship to vipassanā. But before exploring that, first I want to clarify how ānāpāna is done, or at least how it is done in the tradition in which I practice. Ānāpāna is mindfulness of breathing. In my experience, most instructions are to observe the breath coming in the nostrils, and the breath going out. And this is how Goenkaji teaches it to new students. But then after a few days, he asks them to switch their attention to the observation of a small sensation on the upper lip. This is a different method of doing ānāpāna. Thus there are three possible ways to do ānāpāna: the first method is observation of the in-and-out breath; the second method is observation of the sensation on the upper lip; and the third method is the observation of both together. I do ānāpāna as observation of the sensation on the upper lip, and I pay little or no attention to the in-and-out breath. This is how I have done it all my life, and as a result, that sensation on the upper lip is almost like a permanent fixture. It is very strong, and readily available at all times. I find that observation of the sensation on the upper lip is far more intense and far more focused than observation of the in-and-out breath. I find that it is much better for building concentration, and is more suitable for vipassanā, since it is sensation-based. I find that observation of the in-and-out breath is more rhythmical and far more calming, but the mind is not so intensely focused, and concentration is not so strong.

However, in talking to other meditators, it is clear that some meditators find that focusing on the in-and-out breath is more congenial, and others seem to maintain a focus on both the breath and the sensation. I assume that this is a matter of personal preference or habit, and that people do what makes sense to themselves. The point I wish to make is that in the following discussion of ānāpāna, I am talking about ānāpāna done as observation of the sensation on the upper lip. I assume that everything I say will also apply when ānāpāna is done as observation of both the in-and-out breath together with the sensation on the upper lip, since there is awareness of sensation. I do not know if anyone practices ānāpāna as awareness of only the in-and-out breath with no awareness of sensation, but if they do, I doubt the following will be relevant, but I cannot say for sure.

I previously regarded ānāpāna and vipassanā as distinct practices, since that is how they are traditionally taught, but now I hardly distinguish between them. Ānāpāna involves observing the sensation on the upper lip, while vipassanā involves observing sensation on other parts of the body. The consciousness is the same; the only difference is the location of the sensation being observed. To me, they have become two aspects of a single practice. It has become quite natural to practice both simultaneously. For example, when the mind is concentrated in jhāna, I can focus on the sensation of the upper lip, while also being fully aware of the whole body suffused with strong sensations, aware of mind moments arising and passing away, knowing that all of this is impermanent and insubstantial. It is both pleasant and beneficial to abide in this state, simply relaxed, experiencing anicca.

However, there is more to it than this. Consider the ānāpāna section of the course. If a meditator is observing the intense sensation on the upper lip and then enters jhāna, a strong body sensation, pīti, arises throughout the body. The meditator will be aware of this pīti—it would be impossible to ignore this strong, pleasant tingling sensation throughout the whole body—at the same time as being simultaneously aware of the sensation on the upper lip. Although technically practicing ānāpāna, the meditator is essentially doing the same practice as in vipassanā, namely observing sensations throughout the whole body.

People might argue that this is not quite true, and that in fact there is a difference between ānāpāna and vipassanā, because while doing vipassanā we focus our attention on sensations throughout the body, whereas while doing ānāpāna in jhāna, we focus our our attention on both the sensation on the upper lip as well as sensation throughout the body. I believe this is a very minor distinction, and while it may be true in many cases, often it is not. Awareness of the sensation on the upper-lip becomes such a deeply ingrained habit, cultivated over a lifetime, that the mind naturally remains there even when observing sensations throughout the body. So when in jhāna, whether practicing vipassanā or practicing ānāpāna, the mind is often aware of sensation on the upper lip as well as sensation throughout the body. It became clear to me that switching from ānāpāna to vipassanā involved very little change in practice; I was essentially doing the same thing before and after the switch.

This observation has significant implications for our practice. I have repeatedly emphasized that vipassanā practiced after entering jhāna is conducted in the same manner as before entering jhāna: sensations are observed in the same manner with the same understanding. The only difference is that consciousness in jhāna differs from normal consciousness. This is not the case with ānāpāna. Ānāpāna in jhāna is very different from ānāpāna in normal sense consciousness. The reason is simple. When entering jhāna, the whole body becomes suffused with pīti, which is a strong sensation, so while focusing on building concentration, we simultaneously observe these intense bodily sensations. This applies to all four jhānas. These sensations are clearly anicca, arising and passing away rapidly, with nothing substantial. In this sense, ānāpāna in jhāna is essentially no different from vipassanā. For me, once in jhāna, ānāpāna effectively became vipassanā.

The difference between the ānāpāna and vipassanā, for me, generally comes down to one of purpose. If the intention is to develop concentration, then a focus on the sensation on a small area of the upper lip helps concentrate the mind, wheres if the intention is to understand the nature of mind and matter, namely anicca (constant change) and anattā (the lack of any self, permanent substance or soul), then a focus on sensation throughout the body seems more appropriate.

This new understanding of ānāpāna helped me answer a question I had often pondered. In the suttas of the Pāli Canon, we are told that the Buddha attained enlightenment by practicing ānāpāna. He also repeatedly exhorted his monks to practice ānāpāna as the path to enlightenment. For years, I wondered why, if the Buddha recommended ānāpāna, we primarily practice vipassanā. The answer now seems clear: practicing ānāpāna within jhāna is essentially the same as practicing vipassanā.

At first, I thought this idea was radical, and yet the more I reflected on it, the more it made sense. To me, this clarified what the Buddha meant in the Mahāsaccaka Sutta when he says that jhāna “is the path to enlightenment.”

I decided to explore this idea by revisiting the old texts, and the answer was easy to find. In the Pāli Canon, the Ānāpāna-sati Sutta (MN 118) explains how to use ānāpāna to attain enlightenment. The sutta clearly states that mindfulness of breathing is not only beneficial but also fulfills the practices described in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and when developed and cultivated, lead to enlightenment. Since the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta provides the theoretical foundation for our practice of vipassanā, the Buddha is essentially saying that ānāpāna can lead to the same results as vipassanā. The sutta then provides several stanzas describing the process. In a formal and formulaic manner, it describes how a meditator practicing ānāpāna, first becomes aware of the body, then develops awareness of strong bodily sensations, and finally becomes aware of the mind and important mental objects. In my experience, this is exactly what occurs when practicing ānāpāna in jhāna, and is no different from vipassanā. The Buddha teaches that observing sensations in jhāna is integral to the path to enlightenment, whether it is called ānāpāna or vipassanā.

This insight arose from my personal meditation experience, where I came to realize that both ānāpāna and vipassanā can—and should—be practiced in jhāna, as they are simply different approaches to the same practice. Then, through my later study of ancient texts, I discovered that this is precisely what the Buddha himself taught. He states clearly and explicitly that jhāna is the path to enlightenment, and that when done as he recommended, in jhāna, both ānāpāna and vipassanā lead to the same goal, liberation.

To conclude, these experience have had a huge impact on myself and my life, in so many ways. But the most important one is that now, as a result of my experiences on these six long retreats, I feel that my practice aligns far better with what the Buddha taught than it did previously. This provides me with great sense of reassurance. I feel much more firmly established on the Buddha’s path, and I see every reason to believe that good things will follow.

I also believe that others can achieve the same benefits—a topic I will address in the next chapter.

End of Chapter 4

Next chapter:

Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

Previous chapter:

Chapter 3: Later Retreats

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Thank you for reading Gary Buck’s Substack. Everything here is free. I do not accept donations. You are free to copy or distribute the content, as long as you give credit, and for noncommercial purposes only.

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Chapter 3: Later Retreats

Reading Time: about 26 mins. 5,200 words.

The First Enemy

After the experiences of this first retreat, I was eager to sit a new retreat. So, the next year, I signed up for a 30-day course. I remembered that increased effort was the key that had unlocked the jhānas the year before, so I was eager to work hard from the very first day and make the most of the opportunity. I was far too eager, in fact. From the first day, I pushed my concentration very hard. I literally drilled my attention into the sensation on the small area of the upper lip. However, it is not easy to press your attention very hard while at the same time remaining relaxed. After a day or so, I noticed that I was getting a strong sensation at the back of my neck—tension. I ignored it and pressed on. After a while, the pain in the neck increased into a serious tension headache. As I continued, the tension headache intensified. On day three, I did enter the first jhāna, but the neck pain kept pulling my attention away from the object of meditation and toward the very strong sensation at the back of my neck. It soon became clear to me that, in my eagerness to concentrate the mind, I was inadvertently creating tension somewhere in my head. I was not exactly sure where, but once a physical association is established, it is hard to break. After a while, the tension at the back of the neck was present even during breaks, or when I went out for a walk. I knew I had to break the association between my efforts to concentrate and the creation of this tension, but that was not easy.

I had no idea which muscles I was tensing, or even whether it was muscle tension at all. Maybe it was mental tension, if there is such a thing. Perhaps it was tension in my shoulders, or perhaps tension in my head, but it always manifested as a sharp pain at one small point on the nape of my neck. I tried massage, exercise, and relaxation, and that helped a bit, but I was never able to get my mind concentrated enough to reach the higher jhānas. As soon as I tried, the neck pain became more intense. It was clear that I had created some sort of syndrome in which the effort to concentrate had become physically associated with tension and neck pain, and that the only way to deal with it was to stop making it worse. So I backed off my efforts considerably. I had attained the first jhāna, and I was able to maintain that. So I spent the 30-day course in the first jhāna—pretty much all day, every day, doing ānāpāna in the first third of the course, and doing vipassanā in the remaining two thirds. Perhaps I may have slipped into the second jhāna occasionally; I cannot say for sure, but if I did, it was not long enough to notice.

Of course, it would be folly to be disappointed. I spent 30 days meditating, purifying my mind—most of this time in the first jhāna. This course was a wonderful experience, a deep spiritual journey, but also a cautionary tale. I had felt some tension and occasional pain in the neck during the first of these long retreats, the 20-day retreat described above, but it did not interfere significantly with my meditation. The excessive efforts I had made at the start of this second course had backfired. My eagerness to progress—or, should I say, my craving for meditative progress—had prevented that very progress. Clearly, I had much to learn, not only about how to make strong effort while remaining fully relaxed, but, more importantly, about not becoming attached to my idea of progress. “Just keep working,” I told myself, “and whatever happens, happens!”

The Third Retreat

A year later, I signed up for another 30-day course. The task now, of course, was to learn how to develop high levels of concentration without creating tension. I recalled well that once I had created the pain in my neck through excessive tension, even a light effort tended to increase that pain. So my aim was to avoid creating even the slightest tension in the first place.

In the previous course, I had tried hard to press my attention into the sensation on the upper lip—almost as if forcing my mind into it. Now I tried simply to place my attention on the sensation, lightly resting it on the object of meditation, while at the same time trying to be aware of every microsecond. At first, I found this very difficult—habits once established take time to overcome. But I persevered. During this course, I learned a great deal. The most important thing I learned was that a light touch on the object of meditation when trying to build concentration works just as well as heavy pressure; it just takes a little longer to bear fruit.

For instance, after a break, if I came to sit down again and focused on the sensation with heavy pressure, I would move into the first jhāna after just a few seconds. Now, with a much lighter pressure, it took a little longer to get there—perhaps a minute or so. The important thing was that the mind still became concentrated and I still entered the jhāna. I found that this was the same in any state, at any level of concentration. Pressure to force the concentration got me there sooner but created tension, whereas a lighter touch still got me there, requiring only a little more patience. This insight was very helpful.

But I noticed one more thing, which was perhaps the cause of the tension. As I made effort to concentrate the mind, I noticed a subtle sensation within my head—presumably somewhere in the brain. It felt as though a certain part of the brain was activated when I made an effort to concentrate. But that sensation arising from the effort to concentrate is easily confused with the sensation of muscles being tensed. It seems that, while trying to achieve the physical feeling associated with concentrating the mind, I was inadvertently creating muscle tension in the back of my neck. I do not know if this makes sense. I have never heard anyone else talk about this, but that is what it felt like.

I can now recognize a clear difference between the sensation created when making an effort to concentrate the mind and the sensation due to muscle tension. They are not the same thing. But they can seem very similar, and I still sometimes make mistakes when I am too eager.

It took constant vigilance to retrain my mind and learn to meditate with a lighter touch. Sometimes I would forget, or perhaps grow impatient, press too hard, and immediately the neck pain would return to remind me. Eventually, I became better at recognizing this before it developed into a problem.

This course was a great success. My concentration increased steadily as I worked. By the morning of the third day, I had attained the first jhāna, and before the end of the 10-day period of ānāpāna, I had attained the fourth jhāna. Every sitting was completely focused on my sensations from start to finish.

During those years of practice before I had attained the jhānas, there was always a small proportion of time during which my mind went off topic, wandering here or there. Sometimes it was more, sometimes less. But now my mind hardly ever wandered. Every hour was sixty full minutes on task, and every minute was sixty full seconds. And the higher the jhāna, the deeper the concentration.

As for the jhānas themselves, they were just as I had experienced them before. Of course, I came to understand them better. I learned the characteristics of each one and learned to see their differences. Now I could clearly see the difference between the first and second jhāna, both of which have pīti as the dominant sensation. The theoretical discussion helped greatly, but there is nothing to compare with firsthand experience.

I used to think that good concentration meant the ability to keep the mind consistently on the object of meditation—or, to put it another way, that the more continuous the awareness, the better the concentration. If my mind did not wander, then I thought my concentration was better. While no doubt this is true, I could now see a clear difference between samādhi, concentration, and sati, the continuity of awareness.

I had never fully understood why the ancient texts used two different words for these two things, or why both were important and separate parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. Now I came to understand that these two are very different. Sati is the continuity of awareness of what is happening, whereas samādhi (concentration) is concerned with the quality of the mind itself.

At lower levels of concentration, the mind seems somehow coarser, cruder, or rougher—less fine-grained—whereas at higher levels of concentration, the mind seems much finer, and purer. Compared to the concentrated mind while in our normal sense-sphere consciousness, the mind in the first jhāna seemed much finer, more concentrated. And then, as I went up into the higher jhānas, it became progressively finer and finer. But the continuity of awareness, sati, remained the same in each case, continuously observing the state of my mind and making whatever decisions were needed to manage my meditation.

On this course, as in the previous courses, I practiced vipassanā in jhāna in the manner I had been taught. And as in the first course, my mind tended to move naturally from the lower to the higher jhānas, so the fourth jhāna became the place where I spent most of my time. It was a natural progression to move from a lower jhāna to a higher one. But I had a sense that I needed to gain control over these states, so I sometimes tried to remain in the lower jhānas, or to move from a higher jhāna back to a lower one. I made a little progress in that respect, but I cannot say that I learned how to control them. I was still more like a passenger than a driver, naturally carried to the fourth jhāna.

The Arūpas

The fourth course in this series of six long courses was perhaps the most interesting of all. I sat this 30-day retreat at the vipassanā meditation center in Texas, six months after the previous retreat. It is a wonderful location with ideal facilities. As before, from the start of the course I found myself moving up through the jhānas, until after about a week or so I was comfortably meditating in the fourth jhāna.

It is not easy to describe the inner state of one’s mind, but if we look with our mind’s eye when meditating with a concentrated mind, we can imagine the mind as a blank wall or an empty space—a blank screen, as it were. At one point, after a few days in the fourth jhāna, I became aware that my mind’s eye was looking at something like a vast space of emptiness. I knew from my studies that there are three different spheres of consciousness: the Sense Sphere, where we normally live; the Fine-Material Sphere, where we can experience jhāna; and the Immaterial Sphere, where we can only experience mental phenomena, called arūpa or arūpa jhāna. There are four of these arūpas. The main characteristic of these four arūpas is that, while the jhāna factors are the same as in the fourth jhāna of the Fine-Material Sphere—equanimity and concentration—the object of meditation is an abstract mental object. In the Immaterial Sphere of consciousness, the mind cannot cognize material things, such as the body. The four arūpas have descriptive names, and I knew that the first of these is called “infinite space.”

Perhaps due to a fit of mischief, or as a distraction, while in the fourth jhāna I switched my attention from the sensations on the upper lip to this mental image of an inner space. After some time meditating on this mental image—perhaps a few hours—to my surprise something happened. Again, I got the feeling of being pulled upwards, or of going up into a new state, and I entered a state that felt very much like the fourth jhāna, but the concentration seemed more intense as I focused on the mental concept of space. In this state there was no sensation. I was not aware of my body, my breath, or my sensations at all. I was in a completely mental world. It was a very concentrated state of great calm, somewhat similar to the fourth jhāna, but more ethereal somehow. But I was still aware of who I was and what I was doing, and I was aware that I could exit from this state whenever I wished. In other words, I had sati, full awareness and executive control over my meditation. But it was clear that neither ānāpāna, awareness of breathing, nor vipassanā, observation of sensations, were possible. It was clear that this was not part of my vipassanā practice; it was something else. But since I was still in the ānāpāna section of the course, I told myself this was all part of developing concentration, and so I continued to remain in that state for a while.

I knew that there are were four of these arūpas, and that the second stage of the arūpas is called “infinite consciousness.” I had no idea what infinite consciousness was, let alone how one meditates on it. Indeed, I had no intention of trying to enter that state, and I made no effort to do so. But I did continue to focus on strengthening my concentration. I noticed that although my mind stayed continually on the object of concentration—infinite space—there were times when I was more conscious of my mind actually resting on the object of meditation. That is what I started to aim for: this sense of my consciousness clearly resting on the object of meditation. I focused on this consciousness in order to improve my concentration. But I unexpectedly entered a new state, with the awareness of my own consciousness as the object of meditation. “Oh, so this is what it means; this is how you focus on infinite consciousness,” I realized. This new state was similar to the previous one, but more concentrated, more abstract, and more ethereal, with a different object of attention—namely, my own consciousness. At this point, the mind was very fine, very rarefied indeed.

By now, I felt willing to try for the next two arūpas, but again I had no idea how to proceed. The next state is called “nothingness.” Again, I had no idea what nothingness was like, let alone how one meditates on it, but it was clear that the names were descriptive in some manner. So I reasoned that the infinite space of the first arūpa is similar to nothingness, and I took infinite space as the object, as I had before, but then tried to focus my mind on nothing—to let go of the object in some manner. After a few hours, I did enter the next state. Again, the state was more intense than the last, even finer, more ethereal, purer, and far more concentrated, focused intently on nothing. Obviously, it is impossible to describe in words. But as in the previous states, I knew who I was, where I was, and what I was doing. I still felt that I had awareness, sati, and full executive control of my meditation.

These three arūpas arose quite naturally, one after the other, despite the fact that I did not know how to enter them. They seemed like a simple progression of increasing concentration. Nevertheless, they required considerable meditative effort, concentration, and calm. When I entered each of these arūpas, it took my mind a little time to settle into it—to get its full flavor, if you like. There was always a period when I first entered these states during which I felt that I was not quite properly in the state, that I was reaching, trying to grasp it better; and then eventually, after some time, I relaxed into it and felt as though I had actually grasped it. Once I had done so, each state had a particular feeling or flavor. I perceived each state as being “like something,” in the sense that one state feels like this, and another feels like that.

But the fourth arūpa was different. I had no idea what to do, or how to enter the fourth state, except to continue to concentrate with as much calmness as I could. Patience is necessary, I knew, and patience is easy in a state of such calm meditative bliss. The fourth arūpa is called in English “neither perception nor non-perception.” I had no idea what that meant either, but again I simply let nature take its course. At some point, after a day or so, my mind moved from the third arūpa into the next one. This new state was more concentrated, more refined, and even more ethereal than any I had previously experienced. Again, I found that at first I was not grasping it very well. Since this had happened with the other arūpas, I assumed that I simply needed to be patient, that I would settle into the state and get its flavor. But I never did. I knew I had left the third arūpa, and I was aware that I had entered a new state—presumably the fourth arūpa—but somehow it seemed too vague, or partly out of reach. I waited patiently, but my perception never settled. I was in the state, but somehow not fully perceiving it. At first I was a little disappointed, but then I realized that this state must be called “neither perception nor non-perception” for a reason. I thought that this state must be the limit of my perceptive ability, and that perception itself was somehow getting “thinner”, and was not fully present. This was why I felt unable to grasp it. I assumed that beyond this, there was nothing else: the mind could not become any finer, nor perception any rarer.

This excursion into the Immaterial Sphere of consciousness was a wonderful experience. Consciousness in the arūpas was in some ways similar to that of the fourth jhāna, but it also felt quite different. It was a state of intense calm, a state of great purity, and it felt very ethereal. But it clearly had nothing to do with the practice of vipassanā. By this time, I had spent about four or five days experimenting with the arūpas, and it was already day twelve of the course—well past the time when I should have been focusing on vipassanā. So I switched my attention back to my task and completed the course in the normal manner. I spent most of the remaining time in the fourth jhāna. Sometimes I focused on sensations throughout the body, sometimes on the sensations on my upper lip, and sometimes on both together. And I want to keep repeating this: I was doing vipassanā in the same manner I had been doing it for years, just as I had been taught, but in a different sphere of consciousness—that of the jhānas.

The Second Enemy

Six months later, I was ready for another 30-day course. By this time, I thought I was a pretty good meditator, able to sit in concentrated states for long periods of time. Instead, I found that I still had a long way to go. However, in order to explain what happened, I need to provide some context and talk about some difficult events in my private life.

I am blessed with a wonderful marriage. I have lived and loved for twenty-five years with the most wonderful woman I have ever met, and I feel very grateful for that. My wife had a son, a fine young man, who developed very serious kidney problems. He lived with intense pain, under the continual threat of excruciating and fatal kidney failure. Opiates helped considerably, but tragically often lead to addiction—and so it was. At one point, we brought him to live with us and tried to help him recover, but it was in vain. After many ups and downs, he eventually died of an overdose, as frequently happens to addicts when they relapse. During his time living with us, my wife and I struggled to help as best we could. Those who have lived with addicts will know all about the lies, the deceptions, the stories, the gaslighting, as well as the heartbreak of watching helplessly as someone you love destroys themselves. It was gut-wrenching for me, but far worse for his mother, my wife. We struggled greatly, and at times we both got things wrong. The strain affected our relationship, as we came to different understandings of what was happening and what we should do. At one point, we both said some hurtful things to each other, which led to many unwholesome thoughts—at least on my part. I spent too much time nursing feelings of hurt and resentment; I know she did too. We became somewhat distant from each other for a time. Then things came to a head in a rather spectacular manner, and our son was taken to hospital. My wife and I immediately re-established our close relationship, stronger than before: we apologized to each other and restored our relationship to what it should have been. We have remained a devoted couple ever since. Between us, all was forgiven, and, I thought, all was forgotten. All of this had happened a few years prior to the time that I sat my first long meditation course.

On this course, the fifth in the series, I soon found that many unkind thoughts arose in my mind. I remembered things my wife had said during those difficult times, and such thoughts pulled me away from my meditation. This happened again and again. I tried everything I could to ignore these thoughts: I tried meditating with as much discipline as possible; I tried switching my attention elsewhere; I even tried taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha; and sometimes I simply gave up and went for a walk. But these unwelcome thoughts still continued to arise and flooded my consciousness, and try as I might, it was very difficult to stop myself from dwelling on them.

At the start of the course, I found myself entering the first jhāna after two or three days, in what I had come to think of as the normal manner. But I never managed to get beyond that. Perhaps I strayed into the second jhāna from time to time, but I could not hold on to it. There were simply too many powerful thoughts. But vipassanā is a process of purification, and so I worked as hard as possible. I observed the arising and passing away of these mental phenomena with as much equanimity and detachment as I could muster, mainly in and out of the first jhāna. I finished the course in the normal manner. These unwholesome thoughts persisted until the end of the course, and then stopped. They have never returned.

I do not know exactly why these thoughts came up so strongly during this course, when they had not arisen in any of the previous ones. But it is not unusual for vipassanā to cause deep impurities to come to the surface. Indeed, many would say that this is precisely the purpose of vipassanā.

The idea that the results of our previous kamma—our previous actions—come to the surface during intense practice is very common among vipassanā meditators. Goenkaji specifically talks about this in his ten-day discourses. Not only Goenkaji, but other teachers in this tradition have expressed similar ideas, including when I studied in Burma with U Ba Khin’s other students. I do not fully understand this process as it is described in the old texts, particularly in the Abhidhamma section of the Pāli Canon. But the basic idea is that the unwholesome mind-moments we generate are like seeds that we plant within our own minds—seeds that will germinate into unpleasant experiences at some future date. They are unwholesome saṅkhāras; in effect, seeds of misery. Unwholesome saṅkhāras result in unpleasant experiences. The wonderful thing about vipassanā is that it brings these old saṅkhāras to the surface of the mind while we are meditating. They manifest as unpleasant experiences, such as aches, pains, agitation, sloth and torpor, and unwholesome thoughts. If we observe these with equanimity, they are eradicated, and we are, in effect, rid of that bad kamma. However, if we react to these unpleasant experiences with further unwholesome saṅkhāras, namely aversion, then these saṅkhāras are multiplied, and we sow even more unwholesome seeds. In this way, vipassanā is said to eradicate our previous unwholesome kamma. This is the process of purification. To the extent that I was able to observe these old saṅkhāras with wisdom and equanimity, to that extent I was rid of them.

This explanation of how vipassanā purifies is something I have never heard mentioned in other vipassanā traditions, nor read in other Buddhist texts. Although I think there are explanations in the Abhidhamma. Regardless, experience suggests that this is what in fact happens. Vipassanā does indeed seem to work in this way—or, to put it more carefully, the common experience of most vipassanā yogis is exactly what one would expect if this were true. Beginning meditators are often racked with pain on their first ten-day retreats. Similarly, older students who have not done a retreat for some time will often struggle at first with intense pain or agitation.

Many experienced meditators with strong daily practices find that their normal meditation goes awry at the start of a retreat. For example, in my own case, on some courses I have experienced strong pain that persisted day after day, to the extent that I thought I had a serious medical condition and considered leaving the course to consult a doctor. Then, at the end of the course, the pain has “miraculously” disappeared. Another example is the first time I experienced jhāna, many decades ago in Nepal, as I described earlier. The very next day, after experiencing the first jhāna, I began a ten-day silent retreat. I got up the next morning at 4:30, went into the meditation room, recited the Triple Gem, took the Eight Precepts, and made a strong determination to sit all day for ten days, keeping noble silence. Since my concentration had been so good the previous day, I expected it to continue in the same manner. But within an hour of starting, I was in a thick fog of sloth and torpor and was racked with pain. For ten days I struggled with this, trying to remain equanimous, and hopefully eradicating many old saṅkhāras.

I assume that this is what was happening on this 30-day retreat. Old saṅkhāras arose, and I struggled to observe them with equanimity, and to the extent that I did, to that extent I was able to purify my mind during those thirty days.

To summarize what I think this implies: at one time in my life, years earlier, I had allowed negativity to gain a significant hold over my thoughts. I had created many unwholesome saṅkhāras. Now, years later, my practice of vipassanā had brought these to the surface of my mind and had prevented me from moving up to the higher levels of jhāna. The obvious lesson is that the quality of our thoughts over the course of our lives has a significant effect on our ability to attain advanced states of concentration, the higher jhānas. Perhaps this may seem obvious to some, but it made a strong impression on me. If we want to advance in our meditation, then we need to live our lives in ways that avoid unwholesome states of mind.

The Last Retreat

The last of these six retreats, a year later—a 30-day course at the California Vipassanā Center—was fairly uneventful. I began meditating in the normal manner. Early in the morning on day three, I entered the first jhāna, and things progressed uneventfully. On the fourth day, I entered the fourth jhāna. By the end of day six, I had attained the four arūpas as well and was able to abide there at will.

As on all 30-day courses, we have ten days to develop our concentration. And here I was, on day six, having already attained the highest possible level of concentration. What should I do in the remaining four days, I wondered? I could have kept doing ānāpāna in the fourth jhāna for four days, or I could have started vipassanā four days early. Instead, I decided to try to gain better mastery of these jhānic states.

I began systematically, moving from one jhāna to the next. I went all the way up through the four jhānas, and then through the four arūpas, and then came back down as best I could. I went up and down a few times. As I have already noted, moving from a higher jhāna to a lower one was not easy, but I practiced and improved somewhat. The key was to recall the feeling of the jhāna—what it felt like—and then to focus on that. It was not easy, but I made some progress. I also practiced jumping from a lower jhāna to a higher one without passing through the intermediate jhānas. I also stood up or opened my eyes and then began meditating again, entering a specific jhāna directly without going through the lower ones. I found that I was able to sit down, for example after a break, and move directly into the fourth jhāna. In this way, four days passed very pleasantly, until day ten, when I began vipassanā in the normal manner.

I have to say that, in retrospect, I feel I may have wasted those four days. Mastery of the various jhānas is not the purpose of our practice; purification is. I should have focused simply on the task at hand: observing the arising and passing away of sensations, either on the upper lip or throughout the body. I think this is an important point.

I spent the remaining days of this retreat sitting in the fourth jhāna, and doing vipassanā. This had become my new normal. Twenty days in the fourth jhāna, observing the arising and passing away of physical and mental phenomena, my mind concentrated in a state of pervasive equanimity—this was sati and sampajañña, just as described in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta.

End of Chapter 3.

Next chapter:

Chapter 4: Later Retreats

Previous chapter:

Chapter 2: My First Experience

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

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Chapter 2: My First Experience

Reading Time: about 37 mins. 7,400 words.

How We Practice

My re-introduction to jhāna occurred on a 20-day silent retreat at the California Vipassanā Center in North Fork, California, a number of years ago.

To explain what happened, I need to talk about the nuts and bolts of vipassanā meditation as taught in the U Ba Khin lay tradition. As in any dhamma practice, there are three parts: sīla, samādhi, and paññā: taking moral precepts, concentrating the mind, and developing an understanding of reality. On a retreat, we begin by taking eight precepts—simple rules of conduct—along with a vow of silence. All day is spent in meditation, with set breaks and meal times. The first third of the course is spent in basic ānāpāna-sati, developing concentration through awareness of the breath. The student starts by observing the breath coming in and going out. As the days progress, the student is encouraged to shift attention from the in-and-out breath to the sensation where the breath strikes the upper lip. This concentrates the mind on a tiny patch of sensation, and the mind becomes very concentrated.

Then, after a third of the course has passed (for example, day seven on a twenty-day course), attention is switched to sensations throughout the body. (Most non-meditators are not consciously aware of the fact that, throughout the whole body, every living cell is alive with sensation.) We start vipassanā by first feeling the sensation at the top of the head, and then slowly moving our attention to experience sensation throughout the whole body. These sensations may be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, depending on what we are experiencing in that moment. We train the mind to observe sensation without judging it, accepting it as it is, with wisdom and equanimity. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, we observe these sensations, as we also observe the mind, understanding that all these phenomena are simply arising and passing away. Quoting the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, Goenkaji calls this sati with sampajañña, awareness with understanding. We observe mind and body with wisdom, but we do not react. Practitioners find that this has enormous spiritual and psychological benefits. It is, we are told, the road to enlightenment.

Such meditation is not easy; it requires a great deal of effort and constant vigilance. Otherwise, the monkey mind runs off here and runs off there, and we daydream the time away. But how much effort, and of what sort? That is the challenge. How can we sit still and keep the mind calm, yet at the same time exert great effort? Should I relax and let my attention sit lightly and calmly on the sensation of the upper lip, hoping it will not wander away, or do I push hard, drilling my attention into the sensation, trying to fix it in place and fighting every moment to keep it there? I have always found it a challenge to find the right balance.

So after a day or so of ānāpāna, I went to see the leader of the course, an old friend and a very experienced meditation teacher. I asked him, “Meditation requires both great calm and great effort; they seem like opposites, so how do I balance them? Which should I emphasize? How hard should I push?” His reply was quite simple: “When the mind flies away, it is difficult to know when it will come back. Try not to let it fly away. So more effort is better.”

This simple advice changed my life.

I went back to my cell and increased my efforts. To explain what I did is not easy. Mental experiences are subjective, by definition, and since we cannot actually share the subjective experience of another, we have little idea what is happening in each other’s minds. In order for this to make sense, I think I need to digress again and explain my understanding of mind—how it works, and how our practice relates to that. My model of mind is based on the old Pāli Abhidhamma texts, especially a twelfth-century summary called the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha by Ācariya Anuruddha—or, more correctly, it is based on my own understanding of these texts. Briefly, the mind is not a thing, but a process. One mind moment arises, followed by another, and then another, in very rapid succession. Mind moments are of infinitesimally short duration, and each mind moment has only one object of attention.

Each of these mind moments has four parts: (i) consciousness (viññāṇa) of some physical sense object or mental object, which is the input into the mind; (ii) cognition (saññā), the cognitive processes that try to make sense of that conscious experience; (iii) feeling or sensation (vedanā), which arises throughout the body and mind—either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—depending on what we have “understood” the input to “mean”; and finally, (iv) reaction (saṅkhāra), the states of mind that arise in response, such as love, generosity, hate, fear, greed, ego, or whatever. These reactions, saṅkhāras, are the volitional basis of all our actions of thought, word, and deed. Avoiding unwholesome saṅkhāras—those rooted in greed, hatred, or delusion (lobha, dosa, and moha)—is the purpose of our practice and, according to the Buddha, should form the foundation on which we build our lives. These four parts of the mind, along with matter (rūpa) are the totality of our being (called nāmarūpa in Pāli). This is all we are.

It seems to me that this concept of mind, and how it should be purified, is revolutionary. It is not uncommon for people to understand three parts of the mind—consciousness (viññāṇa), cognition (saññā), and reaction (saṅkhāra). In fact, this seems rather obvious: we sense something, we figure out what it is, and then we react. And the idea that we should always react with wholesome thoughts, words, and deeds is also quite common among spiritual leaders. The genius of the Buddha was to realize that there is a fourth component of the mind, namely feeling or sensation (vedanā). In response to our understanding (saññā), we experience either pleasant or unpleasant sensation, and it is to this sensation—to this vedanā—that we react. We do not react to the input itself, but to the sensation that arises. We like pleasant sensations and dislike unpleasant sensations, and we react accordingly. If we can train ourselves to be equanimous toward these sensations, however pleasant or unpleasant, we will no longer generate unwholesome reactions. This is why I believe that the path to purity lies through meditation on our sensations, which is called vedanānupassanā in Pāli.

In technical terms, as part of his formulation of how misery arises, the Buddha stated that vedanā paccayā taṇhā. In English, “it is feeling, vedanā, that leads to craving and aversion, which in turn leads to misery.” Or, in a more homely phrase, as the old blues song says, “All the money in the world is spent on feeling good.” It is the sensation—the feeling throughout the body—to which we react, not the events leading up to it.

This model of mind is a simple model, and it may or may not be empirically correct, but it works well for me. It seems to fit with older descriptions in the Pāli Canon, and most importantly, it fits well with my experience over the course of many hours of intensive meditation. One other idea also helps me, and that is not something I get directly from the old texts, nor from Buddhist theory, but from my own practice (or perhaps my own imagination). As the mind becomes more concentrated, and we work to focus attention fully and continually on the object of meditation—for example, the sensation on the upper lip—I notice that even while the mind is aware of the object of meditation, it is at the same time somewhat scattered, aware of other things, or thinking about something else in the background.

It is as though we are aware of two things at the same time. How can this be, if, as noted above, each mind moment has only one object of attention? To me, this suggests that while some mind moments are actually on the object of meditation, other mind moments are elsewhere—unfocused, jumping around, or thinking about something else. Since mind moments arise and pass away so rapidly, it appears that we are thinking of two things at once, but in reality we are not. Again, this idea may not be empirically correct, and it may not even accord with the ancient Abhidhamma teachings, but it has a significant practical advantage: meditation becomes the task of ensuring that every single mind moment is resting on the object of meditation. As concentration grows stronger and stronger, that is what appears to be happening—an increasing proportion of mind moments are focused on the object of attention.

So back to my meditation course. I focused all my efforts on keeping my mind on the object of meditation, the sensation on the upper lip. Slowly, my concentration improved. I pressed as hard as I could, making sure I was aware of every microsecond, with full focus on that sensation. Nothing else was allowed to enter my mind besides awareness of that sensation. I never relaxed the effort. Eventually, when I placed my attention there, it simply stayed there, firmly and quietly resting on the object of attention. It is a lovely feeling: the body is relaxed, and the mind is concentrated on one simple object. Time passes pleasantly. Even then, however, I never relaxed my efforts. I kept working, pushing to make my concentration even stronger.

The First Jhāna

Then, after many hours of hard work, a day or so later, that pleasant feeling intensified into a state of intense joy—a pleasurable tingling sensation throughout the whole body. Of course, this was exciting, but I resisted the urge to think about it, compare it, or wonder what it was. I did not allow this to divert my attention, but kept my focus on the upper lip. Then something further happened. I felt myself being drawn mentally ‘upward’. It is hard to explain, but I felt pulled into a higher level, and I slipped into that same blissful state of concentration that I had experienced while in Nepal, many decades earlier.

I seemed almost locked into this state—a state of intense joy. I knew it was very important not to become excited or distracted, but simply to continue meditating in the same manner. I observed all this as objectively as possible and, as far as I was able, continued as before. It was wonderful. This state of mind lasted until the sitting ended and I got up for lunch.

Perhaps I should explain how we practice during the breaks. Unlike other vipassanā traditions that have formal walking meditation, in this tradition the instructions are to remain silent, keep the eyes on the ground, and keep the mind inside. Personally, I try to keep my attention on the sensation on the upper lip while giving only minimal attention to the world outside the body. Thus, during breaks from formal sitting, the mind remains calm, aware, and concentrated.

After lunch, I returned to my cell, wondering whether I would be able to enter that state again. I sat down, focused my attention as usual, my mind became concentrated, and after a few minutes I entered the state again with ease. After that, I was able to maintain this state in every sitting. If I got up for a short walk or to visit the rest room, when I returned and sat down, I could enter the state very easily. No particular effort was required. This became the new normal. I assumed then, and still do, that this state was the first jhāna.

So what was it like? First of all, while in this jhāna, I had the same awareness and executive control I always had: I knew where I was, and what was happening. The observing self (sati) continued its awareness, observing and knowing as before. The intense pleasurable sensations remained; in Pāli, this is called pīti. While focused on the upper lip, thoughts still arose in my mind, but they were like little puffs of smoke on the horizon. They arose, I saw them and knew what they were, and then they simply evaporated.

The task, of course, was not to start rolling in those thoughts, but simply to watch them as they arose and passed away. Sometimes, however, the thoughts were too attractive, and the mind picked them up and began thinking about them—rolling in thought. When this happened, I still remained in the jhāna. Thinking was still possible, at least to some extent. At times, I felt that maybe I had slipped out of the jhāna by thinking too much, but I was able to return by simply refocusing my attention.

This state of mind—the first jhāna—was clearly different from normal consciousness. I felt aware and fully in control, but in an inner world focused on mind and body, with little input from the external senses. Time passed without concern for the past or the future. It was very pleasant simply to dwell there, in the present moment—to just ‘be.’

I slowly became more comfortable with this state of mind and was able to come out of it and re-enter it with ease. I continued to work hard to keep my attention on the sensation on the upper lip, strengthening my concentration. At times, I noticed that my concentration became particularly strong: the intense pleasant sensation, pīti, intensified further, and thoughts ceased altogether. At the time, I did not understand the significance of these moments. Later, I did.

After a day or two of working hard—meditating twelve hours a day and remaining silently mindful for the rest of the time—while my concentration was especially strong and free from any thought, I again felt myself being drawn mentally upward. I made the effort not to become excited, but simply to observe, and continued working as before. Soon, I entered a new state of mind. This was quite different from the previous one. The mind was even more concentrated, and the intense feelings of pleasure, pīti, had disappeared. In its place there was a feeling of indescribable bliss (sukha): a sensation far more subtle than pīti—a very pleasurable state of well-being. Serene bliss. There are no words to describe this feeling.

The mind was very concentrated, very alert—far more so than in the previous jhāna—and no thoughts arose at all. I simply sat still, locked in a state of blissful serenity. Again, I was fully aware: I knew where I was and what was happening. I felt that I had normal control. I felt just like myself, but meditating in a blissful state—beyond ecstasy. It was easy to see why a person might want to spend a long time in this state.

At the time, I assumed that I had entered the second jhāna. In retrospect, I came to realize that this was a mistake. This was not the second jhāna; it was the third jhāna. Regardless, I continued to work on my concentration as before. With awareness and equanimity, I observed my mind and body.

After a day or so immersed in this intense bliss—now about day six of the twenty-day course—I again had that familiar feeling and knew that something was happening. Once more, I felt myself being drawn upward and pulled into a new state of mind. This state was different again. The bliss (sukha) had disappeared. Instead, I was locked into a very intense state of deep concentration, accompanied by a pervasive feeling of calm equanimity. My consciousness was dominated by these two qualities: concentration, which was intense, and equanimity, which was pervasive.

I felt totally locked into this state. Nevertheless, I had full awareness: I knew where I was and what was happening. I knew that this was a new jhāna, and that I should continue to manage my meditation by focusing on the sensation on the upper lip and not getting distracted. This state was beyond bliss—beyond the greatest pleasure one can imagine. Words fail. Serenity, perfection, the heavenly realms—something far greater, far superior, than I had ever thought possible. I knew this was equanimity—something I had never experienced before.

Reflecting in bed that night, I felt that I understood something I had never understood before. The Buddha recommended that his followers cultivate four pure states of mind that he called the brahmavihārā—in English, “the abode of the gods.” These four states of mind are mettā (loving-kindness), karuṇā (compassion), muditā (joy at the good fortune of others), and finally upekkhā (equanimity). The greatest of these, he said, is equanimity.

I could never understand why he said that; “surely love should be the greatest of these,” I thought. However, once I experienced this new state—where bliss was replaced by a pervasive feeling of equanimity—I understood very clearly why he said that. This equanimity was obviously a far superior spiritual state. To my simple mind, it appeared as perfection.

Perhaps I am beginning to seem overly poetic, exaggerating how these states felt. But I am trying to convey my impressions at the time. These states of mind are very pure, and of a purity that I had not experienced before. It is hard to exaggerate just how wonderful they made me feel. It truly felt as though I were getting a taste of heaven—a glimpse into why we tread this path and of what awaits those who do. The effect was all the stronger because it was so unexpected. I was simply astounded.

Of course, these initial reactions faded over time, as I became accustomed to jhāna and these wonderful states came to feel normal. But that initial impression—when I unexpectedly stumbled into these states—was very powerful indeed.

I am, by nature, very analytical in my thinking, and during the breaks and in bed at night, I reflected on these states and felt that something did not make sense. They did not fit the descriptions I had read in the Buddhist literature. This last state appeared to be the third jhāna that I had experienced. The first, with pīti, which I had called the first jhāna; the second, the state with sublime bliss (sukha); and then this third state, with equanimity and concentration. Yet I knew from my reading of Buddhist texts that there are four jhānas, and that it is in the fourth jhāna that the dominant mental qualities are equanimity and concentration. This third state that I was experiencing had the characteristics of the fourth jhāna. Something did not make sense.

I remained confused for the rest of that meditation course. Later, when I went back to study the old texts, I found the solution. What I had taken to be the first jhāna, characterized by pīti, was actually both the first and second jhānas. As I reflected on my experiences, I remembered that the first jhāna sometimes became much stronger: thoughts ceased to arise, and pīti intensified. I realized that this stronger version was actually the second jhāna. The first and second jhānas did not feel very different; they felt similar, both dominated by the same sensation, pīti. The difference between them seemed to be more a matter of degree. The second jhāna felt like a more intense version of the first, but without any thought. In fact, I think I had been shifting between the two without realizing it. From now on, I will refer to the four jhānas by their correct names.

After Vipassanā Day

So now I was sitting all day in the fourth jhāna, doing ānāpāna, observing the sensation on the upper lip, while locked in an intense state of samādhi, and the retreat was progressing. Some things had already become clear about these jhānas. One of these was when I attained a certain jhāna, it became my default level of concentration, and thus my default state of meditation. So after I had attained the first jhāna, this became my default state. I “had” the jhāna, as it were, but I did not yet “have” the second jhāna, since my concentration was not yet strong enough. By the time that day seven was reached, I “had” the fourth jhāna, in the sense that I had ready access to it, and it was the default state when I was meditating. I assumed at the time, correctly as I later found out, that you can maintain a certain level of jhāna as long as you keep practicing it, but if you stop practicing it, you would loose it again. For me, this is an important characteristic of the jhāna.

On day seven, I needed to switch my practice from ānāpāna to vipassanā, observing bodily sensations. During the vipassanā sitting—which is a group sitting with verbal instructions on how to practice vipassanā that takes place on day seven—I sat from start to finish in the first jhāna and was able to follow the teacher’s instructions in the normal manner. I could move my attention from the sensation on the upper lip to the sensation on the top of my head. I could feel sensations throughout the rest of the body. I could observe sensations on each and every part of the body, one place at a time, or I could sweep or scan my attention from head to foot, in any direction, in any way I wanted.

Doing vipassanā in jhāna was no different from how I had been doing it all my life. The way I was doing it was the same, but this was far stronger vipassanā than I had ever experienced before. My concentration was far stronger, the awareness deeper and more or less constant. I sat rock solid, and my mind simply never wandered. I was filled with pleasant sensation, and whereas in the past I had often sat with awareness of painful sensation, now I had to practice observing pleasant sensation in the same manner, with an equanimous mind. I soon realized that I could observe the pīti without relishing it, in the same way that I had learned to observe pain in the knee without disliking it.

One other thing was much easier. The idea that everything is changing—anicca—is so central to the Buddha’s teaching, and we are instructed in the vipassanā tradition to be constantly aware of this anicca during our practice. But I have never quite understood how I should do that. Should I be internally reciting, “anicca, anicca” while observing my sensations, as one of my teachers, U Chit Tin (1997), recommends, or should I simply ‘ know’ that everything is constantly changing. In the first jhāna, I was much better able to keep that idea in the forefront of my mind, simply knowing that these sensations were an indication of anicca, of constant change.

I did not actually try to do vipassanā in the first jhāna. It was not something I intended to do; it just happened naturally. And it is obvious why. In the first jhāna, the whole body is filled with an intense pleasant sensation called pīti. This is not a subtle sensation; it is a very strong sensation flooding the whole body. You could not ignore it. And when doing ānāpāna-sati in the first jhāna—whether you are doing ānāpāna as awareness of the in-and-out breath, or ānāpāna as awareness of the sensation on the upper lip— you are enveloped in this cloud of sensation. When doing vipassanā in the first jhāna, you are still enveloped in that same cloud of sensation. Of course, the emphasis is a little different: when doing ānāpāna, you are focused on sensation to strengthen concentration; when doing vipassanā, you are focused on sensation to understand the changing, unsubstantial nature of mind and matter. But they feel pretty much the same. It was quite natural to do vipassanā in jhāna, since it felt little different from what I had been doing during the previous days.

It seemed to me that this was exactly how vipassanā should be practiced. Goenkaji stresses that our technique is based on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and that meditators should develop both sati and sampajañña—that is, awareness (sati) along with the right understanding that the phenomena we observe are in constant change and are insubstantial by nature (sampajañña). What I was experiencing was clearly sati and sampajañña, just as the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta teaches, but much stronger than I had ever experienced it before.

Generally, I have found that during the second part of a vipassanā course, while focusing on sensations throughout the body, my concentration slowly gets weaker. So every day it is my habit to spend a while—an hour or so—focusing on the upper lip to keep my concentration strong. I did the same in this course, usually during the first sitting in the early morning, focusing on the upper lip and entering all four jhānas to keep my concentration strong. After getting my mind concentrated in the morning, I spent the rest of the day doing vipassanā in the first jhāna.

After a day or two, however, it seemed natural to try vipassanā while in the other jhānas. In the second and third jhānas, this was not difficult. I could still focus my attention on my sensations and move my attention through the body with ease. I could move through the body part by part, scan my attention rapidly through the body, or pinpoint any place within my body and feel the sensation there. But in the fourth jhāna, this was not as easy. The concentration was so strong that I felt as though my attention was locked in place. Once my attention was on some object, it wanted to stay there, and it took a strong effort of will to move on. At first, while in the fourth jhāna, over the course of an entire hour, I could only manages to move my attention through my whole body just once. However, with practice, I became more adept at directing my attention while in the fourth jhāna. Once I learned to do vipassanā in the fourth jhāna, I was able to move my attention through the body in the normal manner, just as I had done prior to entering jhāna and just as I had done in the other jhānas.

In the fourth jhāna, I sat rock solid—back straight, unmoving—locked into intense awareness of the changing, insubstantial nature of mind and matter. It was immediately obvious that vipassanā was far stronger in the fourth jhāna than in any of the others. This was clearly the most powerful and productive vipassanā I had ever done. There was no question in my mind that this was how the Buddha intended us to practice. It just seemed so obvious at the time. I still believe that many years later.

In this manner, I spent the rest of the course in one or another of the four jhānas, practicing vipassanā. I slowly developed greater mastery of these jhānas, learning to move from one to the next almost at will, trying to understand them more deeply. When I first sat down and closed my eyes, I went easily into the first. Then I found it quite easy to move up from the first to the second, to the third, and then to the fourth. It was a fairly natural process. But I found it difficult—nearly impossible—to move back down from a higher jhāna to a lower one. I knew how to increase my concentration, but I had no idea how to decrease it. The upshot was that during the second half of the course, I spent most of my time in the fourth jhāna. I naturally moved into it, and short of opening my eyes and moving around, I had no idea how to get out of it. And given that I was firmly convinced that the fourth jhāna was the ideal place to do vipassanā, I made no serious attempt to leave it.

As my normal routine during the second half of the course, I got up in the morning, went to sit at 4:30 a.m., closed my eyes, and immediately entered the first jhāna, then effortlessly moved through the others to the fourth. This was not done by design; that was simply where my mind naturally went. That was where I resided when I sat—eleven hours a day. Later in the day, when I sat down after a break, I usually entered directly into the fourth jhāna. Perhaps I should have done something differently. I had a vague feeling that vipassanā should be done in the first jhāna, but my mind naturally moved into the higher ones. I sometimes wondered whether I was practicing vipassanā in the right manner, but there was no one to ask, so I allowed nature to take its course. Since this was where my practice had taken me—where the Dhamma had guided me—I was content to go along with it. It was a wonderful experience.

In time, the 20-day retreat finished, and I went home to try to make sense of what had happened. These 20 days were a profound and unexpected experience. It is difficult to exaggerate their impact. But it was also something I had been taught was impossible. At times, I wondered whether I had been wise to indulge so deeply in these concentrated states. Yet the whole process had been so natural, and the meditation practice itself had taken me there.

But I had so many questions. I was surrounded by friends with decades of meditation practice, yet I felt there was no one to confide in. Is this what vipassanā is meant to be? Is this normal? Am I simply an advanced student, after years of practice, making normal and typical progress? Why had I never heard about this from other meditators, or in meditation manuals? Yet at the same time, I felt a strong reluctance to speak of this. I cannot fully explain why. Perhaps I feared criticism from my peers; perhaps it felt like a guilty pleasure—I do not know. I felt instinctively that my story would not be welcomed by colleagues. It has taken me many years to overcome that feeling. Only now, years later, do I feel able to talk about this. Even now, as I write this, I feel very uncomfortable speaking about my private inner life in this manner.

What I did was go home, take out my books, and begin to study as much as I could about jhāna.

My Theoretical Research

So what are these jhānas? All I knew at the time was that the Abhidhamma tells us that there are three different realms, or spheres, of consciousness. The first is Sense Sphere consciousness, the consciousness in which we live our normal lives. This type of consciousness is focused on the senses and sense-desire. The second is Fine Material Sphere consciousness, a state of intense concentration in which consciousness is free of coarse sense-desires but is still conscious of matter (rūpa), and is focused on the inner world of mind and matter. The third is Immaterial Sphere consciousness, a state of profound concentration beyond any perception of material form, in which consciousness focuses on the inner world of mind only (arūpa, or non-material). The second of these types of consciousness, the Fine Material Sphere of consciousness, is called rūpa jhāna, or simply jhāna. As far as I am aware, this is the meaning of the word “jhāna” as used by the Buddha in the suttas of the Pāli Canon. So, when I use the word “jhāna,” I use it in this sense, to refer to the Fine Material Sphere of consciousness. In ancient Theravāda Buddhist cosmology, both the Fine Material consciousness (rūpa jhāna) and the Immaterial consciousness (arūpa jhāna) are associated with the higher heavenly realms. The important thing to note is that jhāna is not just our normal mind that has become very concentrated; rather, it is a different type of consciousness that can only be entered once the normal mind becomes very concentrated.

There seemed to be agreement within the Theravāda Buddhist community regarding the existence of these three different states of consciousness, but there also seemed to be considerable disagreement about how they should be used in meditation. My starting point was to examine what I had been told by my teachers. At the time, just after my first experience of jhāna, I had not heard Goenkaji’s discourses for the long 30-day courses, in which he talks about jhāna quite a lot, but I had heard the 20-day discourses. I felt that I had heard Goenkaji refer to them as deep states of absorption, with one-pointed concentration and the mind fully absorbed into a single object of meditation, with no experience of the physical body or of other changing phenomena. I had also read many texts, meditation manuals, and similar sources that made similar claims. This was what I had been taught about jhāna, and it was also what was commonly described in the Theravāda Buddhist literature I had read. And yet, this was clearly very different from my own experience in a number of important details.

This was very perplexing, and quite disconcerting. My own experience suggested that the mind in jhāna was not absorbed into one object. Yes, the mind was clearly concentrated, or unified within itself, but I could move my attention from one object of meditation to another. I was fully aware of my physical body and the sensations within it, and I could experience the changing nature of these sensations. I was also fully aware of the ongoing processes of my mind. In the first jhāna, thoughts arose, and if I was not sufficiently vigilant, I would even start rolling in those thoughts, thinking about things. And most importantly—and this is what disturbed me the most—I was clearly able to continue doing vipassanā in the same manner I always had. I felt I had normal awareness and normal executive control—normal metacognition, to use a term from psychology. I could decide when to move my attention and where to move it. I knew who I was and what I was doing. I knew what time of day it was and when the next meal break would be. This was not at all like the commonly found descriptions in the Theravāda literature.

Of course, I considered the logical possibility that what I had experienced was not jhāna at all, but something else. But that did not make sense either. All descriptions of jhāna that I had read described them in terms of what are called the jhāna factors, which are the most salient mental characteristics of each jhāna. When I read those descriptions, they matched my own experience very well.

The first jhāna has five jhāna factors: vitakka and vicāra, pīti, sukha, and ekaggatā. The last three are usually translated as intense joy, bliss, and concentration, and there seems to be wide agreement on what they mean. Not so with the other two, vitakka and vicāra. There are multiple translations of these terms, and many of them do not make sense to me. Perhaps the most well known are those from Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga. He defines vitakka as “applied thought,” explaining that its function is to bring the mind onto the object of meditation. He defines vicāra as “sustained thought,” which functions to keep the mind on the object of meditation. Applying these definitions to my own meditation, he is saying that vitakka is what puts the mind onto the sensation on the upper lip, and vicāra is what keeps the mind on that sensation. Of course, to be strictly correct, it is actually Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, the translator, who coined these English terms, but the explanation of their functions comes from Buddhaghosa. These definitions are frequently found in many other Theravāda texts discussing jhāna.

However, in my view these are problematic definitions, in that they do not make logical sense. These two jhāna factors, vitakka and vicāra, only appear in the first jhāna and then disappear in the second, third and fourth jhānas. So, if their function is to direct the mind onto the object of meditation, and then keep it there, and we no longer have them in the second jhāna, then what is it that directs the mind onto the object of meditation and keeps it there in the second jhāna? Because in reality, in the second jhāna, the mind still stays on the object of meditation and still stays there without vitakka and vicāra. The same applies as we move through the other jhānas. We can put our attention wherever we wish, in any jhāna, even though vitakka and vicāra are no longer present after we leave the first jhāna. To me, therefore, Buddhaghosa’s definitions make no sense.

Other scholars have offered different definitions. In his Buddhist Dictionary, Nyanatiloka (1972) suggests that vitakka and vicāra are verbal functions of the mind, concerned with inner speech. He defines vitakka as “thought conception” and vicāra as “discursive thinking.” These definitions made more sense to me. Thinking happens in the first jhāna, but not in the other jhānas.

Of course, there is an obvious way to approach the question of what vitakka and vicāra are. We can ask whether there are any strong, salient characteristics of the first jhāna that disappear upon entering the second jhāna. And there are indeed two such factors. In the first jhāna, thoughts arise, and when they do, one of two things happens: either the thought simply pops onto the surface of the mind, there is no reaction, and it immediately evaporates; or, alternatively, if the thoughts are attractive for some reason, the mind will latch onto them, and you roll in thought while still in the jhāna. This is a very clear and obvious characteristic of the first jhāna, but not of the others. For me, these two characteristics dominate the first jhāna, because, since the main aim is to build concentration, stopping thoughts from arising—or not reacting if they do—is the main focus of effort in the first jhāna. Clearly, this is what vitakka and vicāra must refer to. It seems obvious when you experience it.

If I must use English terms, the ones Nyanatiloka gave us—“thought conception” and “discursive thinking”—although very clumsy, seem the most accurate. The fact that I was able to see such obvious answers to long-debated topics on the nature of jhāna seemed like convincing evidence that these were indeed the real jhānas.

But to continue examining the jhāna factors: in the second jhāna, thought stops, so we lose both vitakka and vicāra, and we are left with pīti (joy), sukha (bliss), and ekaggatā (concentration). Everything seems similar to the first jhāna, but all thought ceases, the mind is more concentrated, the pīti is much stronger, and the experience feels more intense. This was the cause of my confusion when I did not understand that I had entered the second jhāna. The third jhāna loses pīti, but the other factors—sukha, bliss, and ekaggatā, concentration—remain. This is exactly what I observed. The bliss became far more refined and pervasive, and the third jhāna felt like a state of very blissful concentration. But the most convincing evidence came from the fourth jhāna. The intense bliss disappeared, and the jhāna factors were equanimity (upekkhā) and concentration (ekaggatā), both of which were very deep and profound. These two remaining jhāna factors were extremely powerful; the fourth jhāna is a world dominated by concentration and equanimity. All pleasant sensation and all bliss had gone. This state was beyond pleasant, beyond bliss. There was no doubt what this state was. It was exactly as the jhāna factors described.

The states I experienced had the jhāna factors as described in the literature. They met all the characteristics of jhāna. If they were not jhāna, they were clearly similar states, attained in the same way and with the same characteristics.

(As an aside: this reminds me of the time I asked Prof. Richard Gombrich, the Oxford Professor of Sanskrit, “are the writings in the Pali Canon really the teachings of the Buddha?” His amusing reply, “if they are not the teachings of the Buddha, then they are the teachings of another chap with the same name.” To paraphrase this, if my experiences were not the jhānas, they were different states with exactly the same characteristics.)

However, the jhānas I experienced were somewhat different from what I had been taught about them. This left me with a difficult question: should I believe what I had been taught, and the texts I had read—ancient and modern—or should I believe my own experience?

After extensive reading, I found the answer in a book titled The Experience of Samādhi: An In-Depth Exploration of Buddhist Meditation, by Richard Shankman. I think every serious vipassanā student should read this book. Shankman explores the differences between the descriptions of jhāna found in the ancient Sutta Piṭaka (part of the ancient Pāli Canon) and the descriptions found in the Visuddhimagga. They are very different. Shankman contends that these disagreements have been the subject of intense scholarly debate over the centuries.

The differences between the two, as Shankman describes them, are starkly similar to the differences between my own experience and what I had read in the mainstream Theravāda literature. In the suttas, jhāna is described as a state of intense concentration in which the mind is unified within itself and can be used to examine mind and matter. This is Right Concentration (sammā-samādhi) as described in the Noble Eightfold Path, and it forms the basis for the further development of insight—which is essentially what my experience was. In the Visuddhimagga, jhāna is described as a state of intense absorption in which the mind is totally absorbed into the object of meditation, and the understanding of reality and the development of insight are not possible in these states. Thus, the suttas describe jhāna states as compatible with the practice of vipassanā, while the Visuddhimagga describes states that are not. As far as I could understand, my experience on this twenty-day meditation course accorded well with the descriptions found in the ancient texts, the suttas, and not at all with those found in the Theravāda commentarial tradition, as described in the Visuddhimagga.

In one way, this was very reassuring. Who would you believe—the Buddha himself, or Buddhaghosa, a monk who lived almost a thousand years later in a far-distant land? I was happy to feel that I was on the Buddha’s team, so to speak. On the other hand, to disagree with Buddhaghosa—who is venerated to an extent that most people outside the Theravāda tradition cannot imagine—feels somewhat akin to saying that Leonardo da Vinci was not much of an artist. Buddhaghosa is one of the most venerated and admired scholars who have ever lived. His greatest work, the Visuddhimagga, is a massive achievement. It runs to some eight hundred pages in English translation. He wrote this by hand, on palm leaves, with a simple stylus, by the light of a small oil lamp. And this was not his only work—far from it. Wikipedia lists fifteen other works that he wrote, with extensive commentaries on various parts of the Pāli Canon. His scholastic output was truly immense, and he is without doubt one of the most productive scholars the world has known. His work has attained canonical status in the Theravāda tradition, and has held that status over fifteen-hundred years.

Obviously, it is with some unease that I declare my experience to be different from his explanations. All I can suggest is that, as a great and productive scholar, he may have spent more time in study than in meditation. This is not uncommon. I have always felt that the Theravāda tradition, even to this day, is too immersed in scholarship and not immersed enough in meditation. Furthermore, between the time the Buddha lived and the time when Buddhaghosa wrote—nine centuries later and thousands of miles away—great empires rose and fell.

End of Chapter 2

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Chapter 3: Later Retreats

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Chapter 1: Some Background

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• ReferencesFeel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested.

• Glossary

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Chapter 1: Some Background

Reading Time: about 20 mins, 4,000 words.

Getting Established

I was born at the end of the Second World War, and grew into adulthood during the 1960’s, a time of great social change. In Europe, the first half of the twentieth century was a difficult time of war and economic depression. Times were very hard; economic conditions were terrible for most working people. Most people struggled. On top of that, my grandfather’s generation experienced the horrors of the First World War, and my father’s generation went through those of the Second World War. My generation wanted none of that. Our idea was to “make love, not war.” Many rejected the values of our parents and grandparents and looked for alternatives. India and its long spiritual tradition was attractive to many, and young people flocked in droves to study Indian spiritual traditions. I was one of those, although in truth, I was more attracted by the excitement of exotic places, especially those where hashish was readily available, rather than by any spiritual quest.

However, while in Sri Lanka, I came across the teachings of the Buddha, and for reasons I cannot explain, I was not only convinced by what I read, but I felt a deep and abiding conviction that the Buddha was right, and that following his path was the way to live my life. I still feel exactly the same, many decades later. My studies told me that I needed to adopt some basic moral precepts, and learn a particular type of meditation, called vipassanā. So I adopted five precepts (not to kill, steal, lie, take intoxicants, or commit sexual impropriety), and I began my search for a vipassanā teacher. All I knew was that vipassanā practice had been revived and taught by a Burmese monk, Mahasi Sayadaw. I traveled all around Sri Lanka searching for someone who could teach me his technique, but to no avail. Eventually, someone suggested that I should search in India, and so I did, visiting places of Buddhist pilgrimage, asking monks and pilgrims if they knew of such a person.

Eventually, after months of searching, I was told of a Burmese monk, Sayadaw Revatadhamma, a scholar living in Benares, North India, who had studied with Mahasi Sayadaw. I traveled to his residence, a small Buddhist vihāra (a refuge for pilgrims), knocked on his door, and asked him to teach me vipassanā. At first he simply smiled and declined. He suggested that instead, I should study with an Indian vipassanā teacher, called Goenka. I told him that I knew nothing of this Goenka, but I did know about Mahasi Sayadaw, and that is what I wanted. I persisted, and eventually he kindly agreed to let me share the simple food he ate, sleep in an old shed in the grounds of his temple and meditate all day in the upstairs room of the temple.He insisted that I keep Eight Precepts which are ancient rules of conduct traditionally followed by Buddhist laity while in monastic situations. They are to refrain from: killing, stealing, lying, sexual conduct, intoxicants, eating after midday, luxurious beds, and singing, dancing and personal adornments.

I stayed there for a few weeks, and every day he instructed me, and every day I meditated alone in that room. It was a very hard time for me. New to meditation, eight hours a day was a serious struggle, but I persisted. Then a few weeks later, this Goenka came to town to teach two ten-day vipassanā retreats. I took them both. I was very impressed by Goenkaji (as I now respectfully called him). His technique was also very hard, but I felt it suited my inclinations better than the technique of Mahasi Sayadaw.

So, I made the decision to give this a technique a serious try for five years, and if I did not get enlightened during that time, I would try something else. Well, over fifty years later, I am still not enlightened, and still giving it a try. I now look back with amusement, and chuckle at how naive and unrealistic I was. But I also look back on that as the most important decision I have ever made in my life.

Since then, I have continued to practice the vipassanā technique I first leaned from Goenkaji; the technique which he in turn had learned from a famous Burmese lay teacher, called U Ba Khin. I have since studied with a number of other teachers in the U Ba Khin tradition, who taught the same technique as Goenkaji. I shall refer to this as the U Ba Khin technique, from now on.

Over these many years, I have done my best, as a busy layman, to follow the Buddha’s path. I have continued my studies of the Buddha’s teaching, I have kept five precepts, fairly strictly; I have taken innumerable retreats, some as short as three days and others as long as thirty days; and I have tried to keep a daily practice of two hours meditation a day, as best I could. This practice has given me a wonderful life, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to all those who have guided me along this path.

A decision to follow the Buddha’s path, such as I made, is not as simple as it seems. Of course it takes hard work, determination and considerable self disciple to follow the path. But long before any of that, you must first choose which of the many interpretations of the Buddha’s teaching you will follow. There are many schools of Buddhism: Theravāda, Mahayāna and Vajrayāna are the most common, and within these schools there are many, many different variants. These obviously share much in common, they have a common core, but there are also many differences. Their ideas about the Buddha are very different from each other: they have different scriptures, they use quite different terminology, and promote different practices. Within these broad categories, there are a large number of sub-schools, teaching widely different practices. And each of these different schools claim to represent the true teachings of the historical Buddha. To someone coming into Buddhist practice from outside, such as a westerner like myself, it is not at all clear what a person should practice. This is a considerable dilemma.

Some westerners solve this by practicing a bit of everything: a bit of Theravāda, a bit of Tibetan and a bit of Zen. They seem to assume that since the Buddha is the common core of all these, then this is the safest way. Perhaps they are right, but personally I find this approach rather confusing. Many take the opposite approach, and choose one school of thought, and select one particular practice within that, and then put all their effort into developing that. This is what I have done.

I decided to work within the Theravāda tradition. There are two reasons for that decision. Firstly, and most obviously, I encountered the Buddha’s teaching in Sri Lanka, which follows the Theravāda tradition. That is how I first learned of the Buddha and his teaching, and it was those teachings that first attracted me. I simply followed what seemed obvious.

But there is another, deeper reason that I have followed the Theravāda tradition. My confidence was in the Buddha, and I wanted to find out what the Buddha himself taught, not what some other person said he taught. The Pāli Canon, the set of ancient scriptures which record the Buddha’s life and teachings, are regarded by most scholars as the oldest Buddhist texts that have survived. And these form the basis of Theravada practice. It seems to me that these are more likely to be the actual teachings of Gotama the Buddha than those written centuries later by someone who never met him. And while it is clear that there are many parts of the Pāli Canon which were composed long after the Buddha’s death, and some parts that even seem to contradict other parts, there is wide agreement among scholars that the oldest parts of the Cannon—the Vinaya Piṭaka, and the oldest parts of the Sutta Piṭaka,—the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima Nikāya, the Saṃyutta Nikāya and the Aṅguttara Nikāya—represent the teachings of the historical Buddha. Since vipassanā claims to be based on the teaching of these older texts I have tried to base my practice on this oldest vipassanā tradition.

This notion, that I am a follower of the historical Buddha has informed my whole life. I have practiced in the U Ba Khin tradition, not because I am a follower of U Ba Khin, even less because I am a follower of Goenkaji, but because I believe they are teaching what the Buddha taught. This means that when I have a question, or need advice, my first thought is to search for what the Buddha said. When I take refuge in the Buddha, it is not a formality, it is a commitment. Of course, I have benefited greatly from the help and advice of many teachers, writers and scholars, most especially the vipassanā teachers I have have studied and worked with. I respect them deeply, but only because they have helped me to understand the teaching of the Buddha, not because they taught me something else.

Obviously, I shall be forever grateful to those who have helped me along this path; especially my “dhamma-baba,” Sri S. N. Goenka. I cannot thank him enough for what he gave me; namely a technique to unlock the benefits of following the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

However, gratitude is one thing, blind acceptance is quite another. Whatever Goenkaji said, whatever he advised, I have to review that in the light of what the Buddha taught in the Pāli Canon. And I apply, or at least I attempt to apply, this yardstick to every teacher, every writer, and anyone who offers me advice on how to tread the Buddha’s path. The question is always, what did the Buddha say?

This may seem like a sensible practice, and I believe it is, but again, it is much harder than it seems. The Canon is not only written in an archaic, dead language, but since it was preserved through recitation for many centuries before it was written down, it is stylized, systematized, and formalized in such a way as to make recitation much easier. This makes interpretation extremely difficult. Add to this that Pāli is a dead language, with no native speakers to consult, so ambiguities are hard to resolve. Pāli scholars engage in intense debate about many subtle meanings. Hence there is still considerable debate among practitioners about exactly what the Buddha actually taught.

There is one particular topic that has been the subject of the most intense disagreement and debate within the community of Theravāda scholars and Buddhist practitioners, namely the topic of jhāna; and most especially how jhāna fits into the practice of Buddhist meditation. These jhānas are intense states of concentration which arise during meditation, in which the meditator becomes immersed in a state of concentrated bliss. For centuries both meditators and scholars have argued back and forth about exactly what these states are, and how they should be incorporated into the practice of the Buddha’s path. This issue is the focus of my book.

A Taboo Topic

I want to start with a simple quotation of the Buddha, from the Mahāsaccaka Sutta, in the Majjhima Nikāya of the Pali Canon, (MN 36). In this sutta, the Buddha explains how he came to understand the path to enlightenment. He is reported to have said:

I considered … could jhāna be the path to enlightenment? Then came the realization: “That is the path to enlightenment.”

Those who study the Buddha’s teaching in the Theravāda tradition will recognize the above quotation, or will have encountered other statements like it. In the Pāli Canon, the Buddha frequently taught the benefits of concentrating the mind to attain states of jhāna. Yet within the community of vipassanā meditators that I know, not only is jhāna not practiced, it is not much discussed, and further, discussion is actively discouraged. Indeed, it seems to me that there is a taboo surrounding the whole topic of jhāna among modern vipassanā meditators.

The ancient suttas are full of talk about jhāna, However, it is rarely mentioned by any of the vipassanā teachers I have met, and if any discussion does arise, in my experience it is quietly but firmly discouraged. This taboo is widespread within the tradition in which I have practiced—the U Ba Khin tradition. My impression is that this is also prevalent across other vipassanā traditions. However, I should clarify that I am talking here about lay traditions. I believe the situation is different within the Buddhist Sangha, the order of monks, where many do practice jhāna, or so I am told.

It is easy to think of sensible reasons why these lay vipassanā traditions should discourage talk of jhāna. Firstly, it is clear that it takes considerable time and effort to get the mind into the state of one-pointed concentration necessary for jhāna to arise. Most lay practitioners do not have sufficient time. So perhaps it is better not to worry about it. Further, the whole idea of vipassanā meditation is to observe whatever arises, to see reality as it is, with understanding and equanimity. So the idea of striving to attain any particular state of mind seems completely alien to the practice. And since the time of the Buddha, the whole Theravāda Buddhist tradition has been steeped in the idea that boasting of spiritual attainments is unwholesome and undesirable behavior. Those with true wisdom do not make a display of their knowledge! Thus, among practicing vipassanā meditators, there is indeed a strong reluctance to discuss the nuts and bolts of our meditation. Furthermore, words are just too ambiguous, and concepts are just too vague and undefined, to discuss our subjective experience. So meditators rarely talk about their experiences.

I have also commonly heard another reason why jhāna is not discussed: namely, the fear that if meditators once taste jhāna, those wonderful, blissful states of mental concentration, they will become attached to them, wander away from the path of vipassanā, and spend too much time in states of jhānic bliss. I get a sense of this from both ancient texts and modern meditation writers and teachers.

However, it seems to me that historical tradition is the main reason that people discourage jhāna. In the fifth century of the present era, about nine hundred years or so after the Buddha lived, Buddhaghosa wrote his famous meditation text, The Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification). In this, he separated Buddhist meditation practice into two types: samatha-bhāvanā, which was based on developing high-level concentration, aiming for jhāna; and vipassanā-bhāvanā, which was based on developing insight into the nature of reality by objectively observing mind and matter. Buddhaghosa suggested that only vipassanā could lead to enlightenment, since in samatha—that is, in jhāna—the mind was too deeply absorbed into the object of meditation to observe objective reality.

This division of Buddhist meditation into two separate streams, samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā, is what seems to have led to the common belief, among both modern vipassanā teachers and modern Theravāda scholars alike, that jhāna has no place in vipassanā. Given this widespread belief, it is not surprising that teachers and writers alike might not feel comfortable when the topic arises.

However, while there are perhaps good reasons not to discuss jhāna with vipassanā students, there is also a serious problem with that: namely, that some students do, in fact, attain states of jhāna while on vipassanā retreats. It is not uncommon. It happened to me, for example, as a fairly new meditator many decades ago. I was staying in a small vihāra in Nepal, meditating for a few hours every day. One day, while doing ānāpāna-sati (meditation on the awareness of breathing), in a moment of idle curiosity, I switched my attention from the in-and-out breath to the vague light that had appeared in my mind’s eye. Like many, I had read about the light that sometimes appears when the mind becomes concentrated, and I knew that some meditation traditions recommended focusing on that. So I fixed my attention on that light. After a while, my mind did indeed become more concentrated, and I slipped into a very different mental state. My mind was very concentrated; I felt elated, filled with intensely pleasant sensation, and I seemed locked in the most pleasurable mental embrace. After that sitting ended, I never experienced that state again. I had read about jhāna, so I simply assumed that I had slipped into the first jhāna—interesting, but nothing to get too excited about.

A few months later, while staying at the International Meditation Center in Rangoon, Burma—U Ba Khin’s centre, but a few years after he had died—studying under some of his most respected disciples, I mentioned this experience in a private interview with one of them. The teacher dismissed the experience as something trivial and told me not to give it any more thought.

At that time—and even to this day—I thought this was essentially a dishonest response. I regarded this man as a teacher, and he knew me as a serious Dhamma student, keeping strict moral precepts and meditating regularly. I was clearly describing jhāna, and to brush it aside without explaining what it was—and more importantly, without offering advice about what to do if this state arose again—seemed both unkind and disrespectful.

I have occasionally broached the topic of jhāna with other vipassanā friends, including senior teachers appointed by Goenkaji. And, of course, I found that I am not the only vipassanā student who has experienced such states. A number of them told me that they had had similar experiences. I spoke with one old friend, for example—long a senior teacher in the U Ba Khin tradition—who told me that he himself had experienced jhāna, and did so regularly on retreats. He also told me that while leading long, silent retreats, where students practice mindfulness of breathing for ten days or more, it was normal for at least one student to come for advice about the jhāna they had experienced. Nor am I the only student I know who has experienced jhāna and asked their teacher for advice, only to be rejected in response. A life-long vipassanā friend, now a senior and respected teacher himself, told me that long ago he approached Goenkaji for advice about the concentrated states of mind that kept arising in his meditation. However, Goenkaji flatly refused to discuss the issue. The message seems clear.

I cannot say how prevalent jhāna is among my fellow vipassanā students. Much of my understanding of this amounts to little more than cursory statements, hints, and innuendo. I do not have much hard evidence of how prevalent jhāna actually is. I doubt it arises much on ten-day courses, since they are shorter and have more distractions. But it does arise on longer courses, where the participants are generally well-established meditators. Given this, should we provide some sort of guidance? I believe that on longer retreats, students should be offered guidance about what to do if jhāna arises. In fact, I would go further, and say that meditation teachers have a duty of care towards the students meditating under their guidance, and that this means offering reassurance, explanation, and advice to those students who experience powerful altered states of consciousness. In my view, the failure to provide such guidance amounts to serious neglect of the meditation teachers’ responsibility.

I say that because of my own experience. I myself would have benefited greatly from such guidance when I encountered jhāna again, many decades after my first experience referred to above.

A few years ago, over the course of five years, I attended six long, silent vipassanā retreats: one of twenty days and five of thirty days. In all of those retreats, after a few days of concentrating the mind by observing the breath (ānāpāna-sati), jhāna arose and became my normal meditative state. This persisted throughout the whole period of ānāpāna and into the period of vipassanā. When I started vipassanā, I remained in jhāna. I followed the vipassanā instructions I had been given by my teachers—the same instructions all students receive, the same instructions I had followed dutifully over many decades of practice—except that I did so while in jhāna. These states arose naturally; they came uninvited, and I felt I had little choice but to go along.

Initially, I had no idea what was happening, nor how I should react. I was blundering around, trying to understand what I was experiencing and what to do about it. But two things became very clear during this period. Firstly, it was quite possible to attain jhāna; it just required very focused and sustained effort to get the mind sufficiently concentrated. Secondly, not only was it quite possible to practice vipassanā while in any of the jhānas (there are actually four different states, or levels, of jhāna), but because the mind was so very concentrated—firmly fixed and one-pointed—vipassanā meditation was far stronger while in jhāna than otherwise.

This happened quite a number of years before I began writing this, and for whatever reason, I did not mention this to any of my vipassanā colleagues. I told no one. I am not exactly sure why; I just felt that such discussion would not be welcome. But recently I became eighty years old, and the question arose in my mind: “Should I take this experience to the grave, or should I share it with others?” I know full well that many of my fellow meditators will be unhappy with what I have to say, especially those teachers and assistant teachers with a strong emotional attachment to Goenkaji and to the tradition he represents. Many may think that I should have remained silent. But as a vipassanā student myself, if this had happened to one of my peers, I am sure that I would have wanted to hear all about it. My attitude would have been, “Just tell me exactly what happened, give me all the details, and then let me decide for myself.” So that is what I am doing.

If anyone thinks I should have remained silent, I can only say that they do not understand the Buddha’s teaching in the same way I do. In the Kālāma Sutta (AN 3.65), the Buddha famously states that we should not believe things because of tradition, because scripture says so, or because our teachers tell us so, but rather when we ourselves experience that these things are good, that they are praised by the wise, and that when practiced they lead to benefit and happiness, then—and only then—should we adopt and practice them. Wise words indeed, and the foundation on which we should build our spiritual practice. This is why I have decided to publish my story. To my peers, I can only say, “Try it and see for yourselves.” If you agree with me that jhāna can and should be incorporated into our practice of vipassanā, then do so. And if you find that your experience is different, then practice in the manner you think fit.

Please understand: I am not a meditation teacher. I have no training as a teacher, and I have never taught meditation to anyone. I am simply describing what happened, what I did, and what I thought about it, both at the time and then later, after I had time to reflect. Perhaps it will help—or even inspire—other meditators to work towards enjoying these wonderful experiences. I like to think so. And if they do attain them, perhaps it will also help them to avoid the many misunderstandings and mistakes I made.

End of Chapter 1

Next chapter:

Chapter 2: Some Background

Previous section:

Overview

Vipassana In Jhana 260525

949KB ∙ PDF file

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Table of Contents

• Overview

• Chapter 1: Some Background

• Chapter 2: My First Experience

• Chapter 3: Later Retreats

• Chapter 4: How Jhāna Changed My Life

• Chapter 5: What This Means for Other Meditators

• Chapter 6: What Historical Vipassanā Teachers Say

• Chapter 7: What Modern Scholars Say

• Chapter 8: A Summary of All the Experts

• Chapter 9: What This Teaches About Conducting Long Retreats

• In Conclusion

• References

• Glossary

Thank you for reading Gary Buck’s Substack. Everything here is free. I do not accept donations. You are free to copy or distribute the content, as long as you give credit, and for noncommercial purposes only.

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