Chapter 2
My First Experience
This chapter is part of Vipassanā in Jhāna: A Personal Narrative and Practical Guide, by Gary Buck.
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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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