We perceived both light and a vision of forms

:pray:

Dear all,

Would just like to share this:

One time while I was on a break walking around the building I work in, I was looking ahead and saw a female wearing a pastel blue shirt going down the side stairs from the ramp. But when I came to the spot where she went down I saw the same girl but she wasn’t wearing pastel blue but a black shirt. I was scratching my head and thought to myself that was weird and perhaps I was imagining things. Later on I remember Ajahn Brahms story of the black towel he saw growing up as a monk in Thailand.

:pray:

May all beings be free,
russ

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Thank you for the interesting reports.
(Again, I stand by not making too much out of the past.)

I’m a bit wary about perceived lights in meditation. This is because towards the end of my last (also first week-long) meditation retreat, there being not much energy left (I know, I was pushing too hard), I realised that (some of) the lights was just really, lights coming in from the window when people drew the curtains. Hahaha.

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I think one time I might have experienced this pulsating vision you mentioned. It happened for maybe 20 seconds, and I didn’t even know how to describe it.

It’s good to know other people have similar experiences (thanks for sharing yours!). I’ve been trying not to pay too much attention to them, as I tend to feel confused and frightened (and to let this get in the way of meditation).

With metta,
FabĂ­ola

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I think that from time to time I’m experiencing auditory (or aural) nimittas. I don’t mean the odd sentence by someone or a heard thought belonging to myself which happened to me a couple of times when I first started meditating, but a constant high-pitched whistling sound.

One time, when I turned my attention to the sound and kept it there, it kept on growing louder and finally I felt like I was about to fall into the sound. That scared me and I pulled back.

A couple of days ago I noticed the whistling again. It kept on growing louder and louder and suddenly it sounded so loud and scary and was accompanied by intense flashes of light that it felt like a train was hitting me at two hundred miles per hour. The overwhelming intensity of the experience reminded me of Ajahn Brahms descriptions of the visual nimittas.

Haven’t managed to ride one to jhana yet (probably because of the lack of happiness and tranquility) but I’m wondering if I should keep experimenting with it or ignore it and wait for a “proper” visual one? I remember Ajahn Brahm saying in one talk that auditory nimittas aren’t very common or reliable. Also, I would be very interested to know if anyone else has experienced anything similar happening?

With metta,
Raivo

EDIT: Since writing this post, I’ve been paying more attention to the whistling sound and can at most times find a faint version of it even when I’m not meditating. So perhaps it’s not a case of auditory nimitta at all but just that keeping attention on it in meditation makes it grow in my mind and everything else kind of fades away. So basically the couple of times it has really reached loud levels, I’ve been doing “mindfulness of ringing in ears” instead of mindfulness of breathing.

I’ve been reading about tinnitus a bit and since I’m around loud noises very seldom, the ringing in the ears could be the result of the position of my neck in meditation, high blood pressure, wax build-up or many other causes. So sorry if this post really has no place in this topic.

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Regarding the perceiving of light before entering jhana, I would like to bring up the stock description of overcoming the hinderances:

Having abandoned dullness and drowsiness, he dwells perceiving light, mindful and clearly comprehending; he purifies his mind from dullness and drowsiness. SuttaCentral

The hindrances have to be overcome before entering jhana and the yogi dwells perceiving light.

Kind regards,
Florian

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Maurice Walshe’s note for this ‘light’ (DN2 footnote 120): “Cultivation of the perception of light is given as a standard way of overcoming the hindrance of sloth-and-torpor.”

I don’t remember the exact sutta reading, but I recall one of the venerables explaining that there are two cases for the perception of light:
1 - Prior to jhanas (“Visual nimittas seems to be very common before jhāna, but I cannot say whether they are an absolute necessity.”)
2 - More like ‘energy’ that removes the hindrance of dullness and drowsiness

In the case of MN128, I think they are talking about that which is prior to jhanas.
Correct me if I am wrong. :slight_smile:

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I’d like to bring some attention back to this thread. DN2, AN4.41 and MN128 have been mentioned. I’d like to suggest or explore the possibility that they are talking about two different lights. So far it seems everyone has been interpreting these passages as relating to a visual nimitta or internal rĆ«pa. I’d like to put forth the hypothesis that some of them might refer to externally perceived light.

External light:
dn2, an7.61, an4.41
āloka
related to daytime, light, luminosity, situational awareness and retention (sati sampajañña), an antidote to drowsiness

Internal light/effulgence/aura:
an4.144 and mn128
obhāsa
related to jhāna, knowledge and vision, divine eye, and wisdom

This is pure conjecture, but perhaps the verses using āloka and relating to daytime are referring to a method whereby one keeps returning the mind to the perception of visual light. Perceiving whatever is brightest in the visual field, the most illuminating, luminous, what reflects the sun’s rays the most (or the candle or lightbulb). The human body really prefers darkness for sleep, and thus becomes drowsy in the darkness, and conversely does not become drowsy easily under bright light. A large part of our circadian rhythm (the daily biochemical fluctuations of the body) is determined by the perception of light and darkness at specific times. light effects on circadian rhythm

AN4.41 is kind of a cross-over since it links the āloka usage to knowledge and vision. One possibility for this is that an advanced development of the āloka perception would eventually lead to the obhāsa perception, although there would probably be additional ingredients or factors that would create the necessary condition.

To get even more speculative, what about dreaming and lucid dreaming? One puzzling part of the āloka passages is “[dwelling] by night as by day, and by day as by night”. This might be a bit of a stretch but I would guess that constantly contemplating light, luminosity, brightness during the day might lead to more luminous dreams by night or what is called ‘lucid dreaming’. As far as I know dreaming is never mentioned in the EBT’s. Some schools of Tibetan Buddhism, influenced by Indian tantra have used conscious dreaming and conscious deep sleep as supplemental to the practices in “waking life”.


āloka passages

But if by doing this you don’t shake off your drowsiness, then attend to the perception of light, resolve on the perception of daytime, [dwelling] by night as by day, and by day as by night. By means of an awareness thus open & unhampered, develop a brightened mind. It’s possible that by doing this you will shake off your drowsiness.
an7.61

The perception of light here is ‘ālokasaññaáčƒâ€™, perception of daytime is ‘divāsaññaáčƒâ€™.

And what is the development of concentration that, when developed & pursued, leads to the attainment of knowledge & vision? There is the case where a monk attends to the perception of light and is resolved on the perception of daytime [at any hour of the day]. Day [for him] is the same as night, night is the same as day. By means of an awareness open & unhampered, he develops a brightened mind.
an4.41

Again reference to the perception of daytime together with the perception of light (āloka).

Having abandoned dullness and drowsiness, he dwells perceiving light, mindful and clearly comprehending; he purifies his mind from dullness and drowsiness.
DN2

Āloka relating to sati and sampajañña.


obhāsa passages

obhāsañceva sañjānāma dassanañca rĆ«pānaáčƒ
perceived effulgence and beautiful forms
MN128

obhāsa

There are these four types of brightness. Which four? The brightness of the sun, the brightness of the moon, the brightness of fire, and the brightness of discernment. These are the four types of brightness. And of these four types of brightness, the foremost is the brightness of discernment.
an4.144

obhāsa

(Sidenote: The last brightness, wisdom, probably relates to one of the Buddha’s epithets — pabhaáč‡kara the light-bringer. In latin, this could be related to lucifer, which when used as an adjective means light-bringer and is a referent to the planet Venus. That planet is the brightest object in the sky before the dawn (some of the year), it is the ‘morning star’, it seems to ‘bring’ the dawning of brightness in the world. I think there are some later stories of the Buddha’s awakening in which he looks to the morning star before or during his awakening.
Of course, the most common association with lucifer is as the satan in Christian thought. Perhaps this highlights a difference in central tenets between these religions. Wisdom is centrally important in Buddhism, and is personified in the character of the Buddha as a light-bringer or a bringer of wisdom for the benefit of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world. In Christianity we might say the central image and character is a crucifer, a cross-bearer, one who suffers, who bears the burden for the sake of others, a sacrifice.)

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Ganzfeld effect?

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Yea, or cave dwelling might do the trick.

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Personally, in the context of MN 128 and AN 4.41, I would translate â€˜Ă±Äáč‡adas­sana’ as ‘knowing & seeing’ rather than as ‘knowledge & vision’.

In these contexts, unlike when â€˜Ă±Äáč‡adas­sana’ is used in SN 56.11 to refer to the knowledge & vision of the Four Noble Truths, in MN 128 & AN 4.41 ñāáč‡adas­sana appears to be referring to the Divine Eye, i.e., knowing & seeing, a psychic power that sees external things.

Suttas such as SN 14.15 confirm Anuruddha was the master of & leader of practitioners with the Divine Eye. Thus, in MN 128, it seems the Buddha, knowing the psychic potential of the immature Anuruddha, begins the discussion by asking Anuruddha: “Have you attained any superhuman states of knowing & seeing in a pleasant abiding?”

In my opinion, MN 128 specifically pertains to Anuruddha & is specifically about the development of Anuruddha’s Divine Eye, which is the same as the 2nd development in AN 4.41.

This is supported by AN 8.64, which describes the progression from perceiving “auras & forms” to “conversations with devas”.

Thus, in my opinion, obhāsa & forms does not relate to the jhana nimitta but relates to the purification & functioning of the Divine Eye, which inwardly sees external forms, as follows:

With the purified deva-vision (Divine Eye) surpassing that of men he beholds beings as they pass hence and come to be; he comprehends that beings are mean, excellent, fair, foul, in a good bourn, in a bad bourn according to the consequences of deeds. MN 119

For example, arahants without psychic powers, such as the Venerable Sariputta, would develop the jhana nimitta in their jhana meditation but would never develop the light & seeing of forms described in MN 128.

:seedling:

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That may be so, I’m not sure. I’m more interested in the āloka passages personally.

What does “then attend to the perception of light, resolve on the perception of daytime, [dwelling] by night as by day, and by day as by night” mean? To me at least, this isn’t a very clear description of a technique.

I just added AN 8.64 to my post, which describes the progression from perceiving “auras & forms” to “conversations with devas”, thus supporting my opinion MN 128 is exclusively about the development of the Divine Eye (rather than jhana per se).

You need to practise & test the instruction & then report the results to us, namely:

By means of an awareness open & unhampered, he develops a brightened mind. AN 4.41

:slight_smile:

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what i’ve discovered about the suttas is often we think we’re 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 don’t 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, “jhana” 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 brahm’s method to enter “jhana”.

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, you’re 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 i’m 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.

it’s 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 it’s 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 didn’t 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 don’t 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. that’s 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 (you’ve 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 you’re trying to sleep, as opposed to for example an animal in the wild who’s 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 you’ve just entered and abide in.

3rd and 4th jhana i’ll skip. the point should be clear. that’s why in the jhana samyutta, when i first studied it i was truly perplexed for many years. "where’s 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, you’ve 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 don’t believe it and thus will never even try.

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i agree with most of what Deeele said.

we should also note the sutta right before MN 128,
in MN 127 anuruddha sutta,
talks about the divine eye, light that can be in a small area, like maybe a few trees, a bigger area, and then light that can pervade a world system, and up to 1000 worlds systems like ven. anuruddha.

so MN 127-128 should be read together to get a sense of the context that knowledge and vision is one thing, and jhana is a separate thing.

also note that in MN 128, the word jhana doesn’t even appear. instead, it uses the “samadhi development in 3 ways” formula.

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Dear spiritual friends,

@Deeele I’ve noticed a much more peaceful and harmonious tone from your recent posts. Don’t mean to call you out, but I think that should be acknowledged. :mudra:

@frankk I know you disagree with the thoughts of Ajahn Brahm et al. on jhāna. It is good to have a dissenting voice in civil conversation, looking from other perspectives can form a clearer idea of what’s being investigated. So thank you for sharing your experiences. Obviously, I cannot know their validity but they seem to have an authentic tone.

Yes but one doesn’t do the stopping of thinking. The thinking stops on its own when the mind is happy. The mind is happy when our own specific sufferings are on their way out. For that, off the cushion, one has to remove one by one his/her specific fears and aversions. By removing one by one, again off cushion, fears and aversions he/she removes the associated desires and delusions. Then going into Jhānas is the natural reward. Use (off cushion please!) the 1st 7 components of the 8fold path and then the 8th (Jhānas) will come easy.

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