Yes. Large chunks of the day are spent without verbal thought, all those automatic things like doing the washing up can be very happily spent without thinking, just attending to the dishes. But this isn’t the same as it’s not so much an absence of thought but more of an impossibility to direct the mind to thought, if that makes sense. It not that I don’t think, it’s more that I can’t think at this stage.
Heh! Yes I know that one! If I go searching, it never comes. It’s only when I give up and wait in the silence without expectation that it comes. The attitude that I adopt is one of making myself worthy of gifts that I have already been given, not seeking out new gifts.
mmm… so I’m not sure that this is possible, or it would (figuratively) mean a turning around and that would take an extreme amount of effort at this point to summon the will into action. For me there is just a natural glide into and through the light. But I’ll definitely give it a go and see what happens.
I have found a table on Wikipedia regarding the Ānāpānasati Tetrads that you mention comparing with Satipaṭṭhāna - which I found useful. Is it an accurate representation?
Up until recently I hadn’t even heard of jhana, but I have meditated in a different tradition for most of my life. I’m retired now and so I’m doing a little digging into other spiritual traditions. So this is really part of me gaining an understanding of what the Buddha meant when he talked about first to fourth jhana and the immaterial absorption’s. I’m trying to map what the Buddha said with experience so that I can then see what else is required from a Buddhist point of view. Things like right speech seem so clearly stated and easy to map against experience, but right concentration seems less obvious to me and it seems there are large differences between teachers. Having said that, my current understanding is that jhana in general are ‘states of being’. And first jhana is that state the other side of the light that I talk about above. I say this because it is such a seismic shift from the usual reality which is this side of the light.
Thank you for the videos @amimettalove, I look forward to watching them to get some different perspectives.
Yes. I’ve no doubt that they are, but what I’m trying to get to is an understanding of what they are? Say you wanted to nail two bits of wood together. You would probably need a nail and a hammer. The hammer is probably attainable, but if I mistook a screwdriver for a hammer, then the job would be rather difficult or maybe even impossible.