what iâve discovered about the suttas is often we think weâre not being told enough or clearly what the meditation instruction is, but in hindsight, after doing the practice, i realized that those instructions really are just that simple and straightforward. the problem is just that no ones believes it could be that simple so they donât spend enough time and energy to confirm it.
on one retreat i was on a long time ago, this was a 2 month jhana retreat, âjhanaâ as practiced in the visuddhimagga tradition, meaning you perceive a light in your meditation with your eyes closed and see the light as if your eyes are open. and then when the light becomes stable, you stop paying attention to the physical breath and just try to exclusively absorb into the light and not pay attention to anything going on in the body. very similar to ajahn brahmâs method to enter âjhanaâ.
4 weeks into the retreat i had still seen no light in my meditation, i was feeling discouraged. however I kept working hard, sitting between 8 and 11 hours a day. somewhere around the 5th or 6th week, i finally saw some light. and i clung on to that thing like my life depended on it, as i was under the impression that jhana can not happen without visual light being perceived. i sat, stood, walked day and night. around this time 6 weeks into the retreat, youâre literally charged up with vital internal energy, your mind is quick, sharp, bright (literally and figuratively), needing less and less sleep, and as i clung to the meditative light more, it got brighter and my persistent through all hours of the day until i only needed 1 hour or so lying down sleep per day. and then around this time in my sitting meditation i started to get visions.
now normally i wear contacts or glasses, and iâm almost legally blind without that. in my meditative vision (sitting meditation with eyes closed), i could see with perfect vision as if i had eyes open with 20/20 vision. for example, one vision i saw the dining hall of the meditation center as if my eyes were open.
itâs important to note that i still had no jhana at this point. i could feel little micro-second-pulses of orgasmic bliss occasionally, but could not absorb into it. it feels almost exactly like constipation. you need to defecate, you feel the mass of tightness in your belly that you know wants to come out, but itâs stuck. jhana-constipation for many people probably is similar to my situation. you feel tightness in your head, chest, belly area. depending on your health, age, it can take a few months to a few years to gradually melt the energetic blockages and then when the energy channels are clear and smooth, jhana will just pull you in.
so back to the visions.
these visions started happening when the conditions were exactly like the sutta described. when the light was really bright at all hours of day and night, i hardly needed to sleep, 1-2 hours per day. now notice this has nothing to do with jhana. i didnât have jhana, as described in the 4 jhana similes or standard jhana sutta formula. but i had bright light any time of the day or night. if i tried to sleep at night lying down with my eyes closed, it was like someone was pulling open my eyelids shining bright flashlights into them. very hard to sleep even when your body is tired and you need it.
so in my experience, jhana with piti-sukha is one thing, perception of light in meditation with eyes closed is a separate samadhi practice that can be done independently. these are 2 separate samadhi practices that should not be conflated together. in fact a straightforward reading of the suttas says just that. in AN 6.29, first 3 jhanas developed and pursued are for pleasant abiding here and now. fourth jhana is for understanding many elements (aneka-dhatu-pativedhaya). and aloka-sanna-manasi-karoti (luminosity-perception-giving-attention to it) , leads to nana-dassana (knowledge and vision).
of course once one can do jhana, you can use whatever object you want to get in. perception of light (if you have light, if you donât you can still get first jhana at least), and of the brahma viharas, recalling an image of one of the 31 body parts, corpses. you can even use an image of a piece of feces to get into jhana, because all of these objects were just a skillful way to gradually reduce your thinking.
once you can do jhana, you realize all you have to do is stop thinking, relax body and mind and jhana will pull you in. thatâs all there is to it. so the standard right concentration formula is actually pretty verbose and detailed compared to that.
vivicceva kamehi - abandon the 1st of the 5 hindrances
vivicca akusalehi dhammehi - abandon the other 4 hindrances + any other unskillful thing.
sa-vitakkam sa-vicaram - with-thought, with-evaluation
vivekajam piti-sukham - seclusion based piti and sukhka [is experienced in the anatomical body, just as AN 5.28 explicitly calls out the physical body for all 4, not just first 3 jhana similes]
pathamam jhana upasampajja viharati - first jhana (youâve just) entered and abide in.
vitakka vicaranam vupasama - thoughts and evaluation cease
ajhattam sampasadanam - internal assurance (this means energetically it pulls in internally, like you would do as youâre trying to sleep, as opposed to for example an animal in the wild whoâs thoughts have stopped but his senses are alert to EXTERNAL dangers and predators.)
cetaso ekodi-bhavan - the mind, unified it he become.
a-vitakkam a-vicaram - no thoughts, no evaluations
samadhijam piti-sukham - samadhi-based piti and sukha [is experienced] (which is way stronger than viveka based piti-sukha, feels like a flash flood of orgasmic piti sukha juice permeates every part of your body)
dutiyam jhana upasampajja viharati - second jhana youâve just entered and abide in.
3rd and 4th jhana iâll skip. the point should be clear. thatâs why in the jhana samyutta, when i first studied it i was truly perplexed for many years. "whereâs the meditation instructions?"
because all that samyutta contains is the standard 4 jhana formula in a repetition series.
now i see those are the instructions, that pithy 4 jhana formula. it makes complete sense if you look at it from the oral tradition perspective. the hard part of the jhana practice is keeping people from stopping the self-doubt that would stop them from practicing continuously to make the break through. so in the oral tradition, youâve have the short 4 jhana formula memorized, and your teacher and companions in the holy life who can do it give you little tips along the way. and your saddha/confidence that they can do it keeps you sticking to the practice.
and the instructions for the perception of light for knowledge and vision is just that simple too, the hard part is people donât believe it and thus will never even try.