Book recommendations

Is someone willing to be a teacher to me and keep me accountable for daily jhana practice to see if I’m doing things right?

I often end up getting lost during my practice and end up quitting it altogether. I really want to attain the advance jhanas this time around.

If you’re kind and generous enough, please DM me.

I’ve tried to do Jhana meditation many times without much results. Have had some insights doing Vipassana. What’s the point of Jhana in your opinion?

I’ve been trying to find instructions for the method to practice vipassana in the 4th Jhana.

I come from the body scanning tradition and am aware vipassana is not until Arising and Passing away. This has come and gone a few times and I feel am muddling along between 3rd and 4th Jhana.

I’ve looked at the visudhimagga and vimuttimagga but the list there is exhaustive. Would be nice to have bare bones approach with a prescribed technique.

If someone can point me to a teacher or a book with step by step instructions, I’d be very grateful.

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsaṃbuddhassa!

Invitation Retreat to taste the true essence of Theravada Forest

Dhamma

Course Name: Exploring the Early Buddhist teachings

Course Period: 3 July to 14 July, 2024

Course Registration time: 11.30am, 3 July, 2024.

Course End time: 12.30pm, 14 July, 2024.

How to apply, click the Registration form.

Course Fee: It’s free of charge, because Dhamma is Priceless!

Course Eligibility:

 Completion of at least 10-day Goenka ji Vipassana course or

any Buddhist Advanced course.

 Serious urge to seeking path for Nibbana.

 Open mindedness (not tightly holding any views )

Aim of this Course:

 Advanced guidance for Vipassana meditators.

 Giving rare forest dhamma to lay practitioners.

 Showing the Nibbana path to clarity.

 Meditation corrections with respect to suttas evidence.

 Clarifying questions and doubts.

 Identifying wrong practice and breaking the wrong views.

 Showing the practice, how to use in the day to day life.

3

Language of meditation instruction: English

Course Guide: Bhikkhu. Bodhi Dhamma

(Nauyana Forest Monastery, Sri Lanka)

For Further Details and Registration, Please Contact:

Course and Management Related: Mr. Vinod – 9945040916

Transport and Meditation Center Related:

Mr. Deepak Pagare - 9960901693

*Meditation Center Address & Map:

SANJEEVAN SAMADHI DHYAN YOG KENDRA

Village: Machindranath Chincholi

Taluka: Ghansawangi

Dist: Jalna

Pincode: 431 209

Maharashtra, India.

Google map:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/RFNMx2wVYX5Mo3wn7

Nearest Transport details to the Meditation Center:

 Nearest Railway Station – Jalna (60 KM)

 Nearest Airport – Aurangabad (100 KM)

* We’re temporarily using this place for our Buddhist meditation practice.

More Information links:

o For introduction retreat videos from Bhikkhu Bodhi Dhamma:

https://youtu.be/n0wHMeHhsM8

o Why is this Retreat? Click Retreat

o Review about previous retreat: Click Retreat experience

May All Beings be Happy!

https://nadia.xyz/jhanas

A very interesting take that isn't particularly focused on meditation at all. Nadia also wrote about her experience at a Jhourney retreat here: https://asteriskmag.com/issues/06/manufacturing-bliss

After access you are supposed to focus on a pleasant sensation until you enter jhana. My question is how long does it usually take being with the pleasant sensation until it results in jhana?

I have been doing jhana meditation and have not yet entered the first jhana. I feel like I’m getting close I get very deep into access concentration and begin focusing on the nimitta. I’ve had a couple experiences recently where the light almost starts tunneling and my eyes will flutter and I’ll even begin having some bodily trembling. I also feel my heart rate start to rise. Is this common or is it a sign of anything? I know ultimately to just continue concentrating and sit with the sensations but was curious if this is common and what it may indicate.

Thanks 🙏🏻

Hi folks,

I want to consistently practice 30 mins of jhanic meditation each day, and I want to discuss it with a member here who’ll keep me accountable. I can do the same for you. Please hit me up if interested.

Last year I somewhat took up practice of Jhanic meditation. Arrived at piti, but it always fell apart once I looked at it. (Didn’t look at it maturely).

Now, I intuit that I have both the maturity and the desire to let piti come up as it does, and that will help me arrive at the first jhana. (Not to get too intellectual about all of this)

There are some book recommendations in the sidebar, but the ones I'm referring to seem be more widely known and referred to more often in other sources.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25241895-right-concentration

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6309471-beyond-mindfulness-in-plain-english

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61893762-jh-na-consciousness

In traditional Buddhist countries the Abhidhamma is held in highest esteem, being considered the more advanced teaching of Buddhism. Yet, although it is held in such high esteem, many a student studying it, found himself at the very least perplexed as to its usefulness. Oftentimes, a more serious attempt to get to the meaning of this system has led the serious student to confusion and doubts. And to the question of whether it is really of the Buddha’s making. Being a monk ordained in a tradition that highly emphasised Abhidhamma, and having seen much suffering arising from people being forced by circumstance of their tradition to study the Abhidhamma, I have set before myself the task, to create a better Abhidhamma book, that should be equally more meaningful and practical in kind. With that in mind, I approached the Abhidhamma not as something apart from the main Buddhist scriptures, but rather as an explanatory model that can, amongst other things, show people without any other guide, both a more ordered and a more detailed step-by-step approach to get closer to the realisation of the Buddha's teaching.

If anyone has any interest in the outcome of this attempt of a new approach to the Abhidhamma, you can download my book here for free.

Also any feedback is welcome.

I'll try to be brief; I first experienced Jhana/Kundalini awakening on accident while casually meditating about 5 years ago. I had intense piti, a feeling of joy and interconnectedness, etc. and at the time I didn't really know what it was, and it never happened again.

Fast forward to today, I started reading about Jhana and realized that was what had happened to me, all the descriptions are the same. So I tried to do it consciously based on what I read, and within 10 minutes it worked. I think I made it to the 1st stage but not quite the 2nd, but I was definitely experiencing a lot of intense Piti. In contrast to the first time I did it years ago, where I remember being relaxed and euphoric, the piti felt pretty intense this time–my hands especially went from feeling swollen to eventually numb, and when I opened my eyes all my fingers were bent back fully flexed/extended, and I couldn't feel or move them. Eventually I slowed down my breathing, the piti faded, and my fingers went back to normal, but it seemed like a pretty strong reaction.

I was wondering if this is normal or I was doing something wrong, breathing too hard, etc. Thanks!

Good morning everybody.

This week I have a cold and cannot breath through my nose, very well. My throat feels constricted, also. It`s wouldn`t be a big deal at all only for the fact that I`m struggling to get any purchase during practice.

It has made me consider the wider implications of study during sickness. Does anybody have any ideas on how I can get mindful and focused practice with a blocked nose? Also, how do you all cope with your various difficulties, some I imagine are having to work through very difficult conditions. I`m extremely interested in how people get their focus and what is `recognised` as alternatives to breath awareness.

​

Pete

Some user in an old subreddit once mentioned Socrates (Or someone else from that era) that their words shows they reached fourth Jhana, do you think it's possible to reach higher states while using logical thought, rather than sensory such as breath or touch. Nikola Tesla's autobiography is said to have been inspired by a saying of Isaac Newton it's something like "I simply hold the thought steadily in my mind's eye until a clear light dawns upon me." Are there schools of thought of this type of concentration ,or is it just something genetic

In which jhana does sati disappear?

If Conceit is a higher fetter and involves self, is the first fetter of No Self a shallow insight?

According to scholars such as Rupert Gethin and Peter Harvey, the oldest recorded teachings are contained in the Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka. In this early Anguttara Nikaya sutta (Tapussasutta AN 9:41), the Buddha explains how he reached enlightenment through the jhanas exclusively.

Tapussa Sutta: To Tapussa (accesstoinsight.org)

And does it persist during jhana?

Hi.

Let's say you have mastered the Leigh Brasington jhanas (you can conjure up the jhana by sheer willpower, and you can make it soak your whole body). Now imagine that a criminal group catches you and violently tortures your body. Can you escape this extreme physical suffering by conjuring up the jhana of Leigh Brasington?

I ask this question because Leigh's jhânas are not absorption jhânas, unlike visuddhimagga jhânas. One who has mastered the visuddhimagga jhâna can escape the pain of torture, for visuddhimagga jhânas are concentrations of absorption suppressing all bodily sensation. But since Leigh's jhânas are not absorption concentration (in the sense of suppressing bodily sensation), I wonder if his jhânas can remove the pain of torture.

Thanks in advance for your help.

EDIT : I speak of suffering as an "unpleasant sensation".

Hello, a several months back a post was made to r/jhana, r/meditation, and r/streamentry linking to the website brotherdaniel.org. The website was an account of the understanding of a rich ex-lawyer, specifically to his journey towards enlightenment. The post was only live on the mentioned subreddits for a day or two before being removed. Since then, the website has gone under maintenance and I fear it will never be online again. I have a amateur understanding of meditation and Buddhism but was hooked at the insights into human nature that he was sharing. Did anyone happen to save the pdf (an option on the website i regrettably never took) or does anyone have any other helpful information on this matter?

I have read a lot about meditation but I rarely practice. In my lifetime, this is only my 2nd time (not counting guided meditations for anxiety for example) so please forgive my ignorance.

• watching breath
• tingling that starts from feet then goes up, sometimes my legs shake
• as it goes up tingling becomes a feeling of no feeling except breathing
• at the throat level, I stop feeling my breath and so I panic a little bit. I gasp for air and back to the start. OR if I am able to stay calm, it continues up. I don't feel my body.
• while that sort of floaty feeling is happening, sometimes the breathing feeling comes back but more often not.
• I stay there for a few seconds, and then I panic, and then I try again

Also, any suggestions to overcome the panic will be much appreciated!

or if someone can provide a typical daily schedule, would really appreciate it.

I'll try and describe as clearly as I can what I experience:

• Sit down and meditate
• Focus on my breath, either at my nose or in my belly
• After a time I will start to notice some buzzing, pleasant feelings in different parts of my body
• On a good day, if I'm lucky, that feeling will take on a life of it's own and grow...
• I start to feel joy, a clear mind, and the beginnings of what I would call unification of mind, like all the pieces are coming back together
• A strong rising feeling of energy starts moving up through my body, starting somewhere in my belly...
• Pleasurable feelings throughout my body
• A growing roar, or noise in my ears
• My mouth starts to water...
• AND then...
• STOP
• The rising feeling stops in my throat
• I get a sort of tickle in my throat, and it all ends there, often times I end up doing a sort of small dry cough, but not always, sometimes I can push through that feeling...

But either way it all more or less ends there, a big anti-climax, and a feeling of frustration.

I've persisted like this for several years hoping it would eventually resolve somehow, but I'm really starting to doubt now.

When I first started meditation, long before I knew anything about these jhana states I used to spontaneously/automatically enter very pleasant, concentrated states of mind, just by sitting down and doing nothing.

Since then I've slowly overcome a bunch of issues, especially around striving and desire... I think.

I recognize a lot of the above feelings (the buzzing, mouth watering, rushing in my ears, etc.) from those early days. So I guess physiologically it's possible, but something else is stopping me...

I've played around with posture, breathing, mouth/tongue position and so on.

Has anyone heard of, or experienced this kind of thing before?

inb4 stuck throat chakra... that may very well be... but is there some proven/pragmatic advice about how to solve the issue?