pardon me butting in, but i just wanted to add a few of my own experiences, and those of some visuddhimagga jhana expert meditators that are relevant here. i’m just going to lay out some interesting bare facts and you can draw your own conclusions.
story number 1, block of ice and jumping into a lake
one my teachers, an expert bhikkhu meditator in vism. tradition, with more than 20 vassa, he once used a simile for jhana like jumping into a lake. he described the process prior of his being able to attain jhana like a block of ice in his chest that was slowly melting, and when it completely melted, that’s when he was able to first get into jhana.
i could describe my own jhana experience the same way, in reference to the anatomical body, but he’s talking about the kaya/body in the abhidhamma sense of “body of mental aggregates.” you really think we’re experiencing two completely different things?
story number 2: relaxing the face
another vism. jhana expert shared with me the key to his able to breaking through into jhana was to make sure his face, neck, head were really relaxed. we’re both practicing anapana sati 4 steps according to vism.
so i ask him, "but aren’t you doing sabba kaya patisamvedi (step 3 of anapana) as being aware of your anatomical body, in order to relax those body parts, which is opposite of what we’re being taught to do, which is stay with perception of light and completely ignore the anatomical body?
he had no answer for that.
story number 3: when i knew i had first jhana, 2nd jhana
before you get a strong second jhana, you’re not sure if you had a first jhana, or it was just bits and pieces of piti sukha.
and the thing about the 4 jhanas is that it’s not an exact science. your experience in the magnitude and nuances of piti sukha evolves, so piti and sukha are not in themselves a reliable indicator of what jhana you’re in.
For me, second jhana was like a flash flood, where in a moment, the magnitude of piti-sukha jumped up 10 fold in power. one moment, you’re just mildly comfortable and the next, like a switch got flipped and i’m submerged in a lake. it’s like an inverted lake. instead of the cool water enveloping you from the outside of your skin, the apo-dhatu, vata-dhatu, tejo-dhata, the interaction of the water, wind, fire element can be felt rumbling inside the anatomical body, moving along different pathways. it also feels like your sitting in a jacuzz on the water jets forcing water onto your butt. or sitting in a hot spring where the force of the hot water shooting up from the spring below is hitting you, which is exactly what the 2nd jhana simile says. whereas before in first jhana, you still felt connection with the outside world more, but 2nd jhana the water (pitisukha) just completely floods your senses. that’s why second jhana is ekaggata and samadhi based pitisukha, whereas in first jhana the action of the bathman kneading water in the soap interrupts the continuity of the pitisukha pleasure juice (interruption caused by vitakka and vicara). it also occurred to me when the buddha put “sato and sampajano” in the 3rd jhana instead of earlier. In the first 2 jhanas, the piti sukha can be so intense and ‘loud’ it’s hard to do anything else except bask in it.
the full body orgasm diminishes over time. ajahn brahm uses that as an analogy to encourage people to practice and attain jhana, but you shouldn’t look for it or expect it because not everyone is going to get it that intense. as the 4 elements in the body harmonize, things over the weeks and months are going to get smoother.
other times, the transition for me between 1st and 2nd jhana felt like i suddenly dropped into a 10 foot hole (that visceral feeling in the stomach of sudden gravity pull). other times, it felt like i’m driving the car on the highway and i forgot i had the cruise control turned on, and suddenly cruise control kicked back in and pushed the accelerator, so i felt like control just got taken away from me by an unknown outside force.
i use ananapa 16 most of the time, and my experience matches up exactly with what Ajahn Lee and Ven. Thanissaro teach. Ven. T. says something like, in first jhana, the central spatial focus of your awareness of the breath in the anatomical body is the foreground awareness, and how the breath feels kinaesthetically flowing the body is in the background. in other words it feels like they’re disconnected. in second jhana, BOOM! the foreground background merge into one, it feels like breath and pitisukha sensations buzzing everywhere in the body, no clear separation of arm, leg, head, torso as in first jhana.
3rd jhana the piti sukha juice, water in the simile, feels just like that. like your body is completely still, like it kind of snapped into an effortless posture staying in place for hours, none of the moving vibrations in the anatomical body or emotional thrills of first and 2nd jhana, with the anatomical body still and calm, it more natural to place attention on visual light. the simile talks about a white, blue, red lotus completely submerged in a still water pond, i think those could be referring to a white, blue, red nimitta, i’ve experienced all of those colors at various stages.
last story: after first jhana in vism., fourth jhana is yours within a couple of days.
several very experienced meditators in the vism. jhana tradition have said this. That is, once they’ve certified you can do first jhana, within a few days you’re doing fourth jhana.
does this seem strange to you? the buddha taught a gradual training, that surely must include a gradual training for the samadhi portion of the path. he used a simile of the ocean floor with a very long, smooth gradual declining slope, until there’s a sudden drop off, which represent nibbana.
he didn’t mention any other drop off, like one that blocks first jhana.
my own experience with an EBT-OR (ockhams razor) jhanas is that it is a gradual slope over months and years.
