What form of thinking/pondering while in the 1st Jhana

[raivo]

Here’s what Ajahn Brahm has to say about the subject in http://dhammatalks.net/Books/Ajahn_Brahm_The_Jhanas.htm:

The “Wobble" (Vitakka and Vicara). All Jhanas are states of unmoving bliss, almost. However, in the First Jhana, there is some movement discernible. I call this movement the “wobble” of First Jhana. One is aware of great bliss, so powerful it has subdued completely the part of the ego that wills and does. In Jhana, one is on automatic pilot, as it were, with no sense of being in control. However, the bliss is so delicious that it can generate a small residue of attachment. The mind, not the doer, instinctively grasps at the bliss. Because the bliss of First Jhana is fuelled by letting go, such involuntary grasping weakens the bliss. Seeing the bliss weaken, the mind automatically lets go of its grasping and the bliss increases in power again. The mind then grasps again, then lets go again.

Such subtle involuntary movement gives rise to the wobble of First Jhana.

This process can be perceived in another way. As the bliss weakens because of the involuntary grasping, it seems as if the mindfulness moves a small distance away from the bliss. Then the mindfulness gets pulled back into the bliss as the mind automatically lets go. This back and forth movement close to the bliss, is a second way of describing the same First Jhana wobble.

This wobble is, in fact, the pair of First Jhana factors called vitakka and vicara. Vicara is the involuntary grasping of bliss vitakka is the automatic movement back into bliss. Some commentators explain the pair, vitakka and vicara as “initial thought" and “sustained thought." While in other contexts this pair can refer to thought, in Jhana they certainly mean something else.

It is impossible that such a gross activity as thinking can exist in such a refined state as Jhana. In fact, thinking ceases a long time prior to Jhana. In Jhana, vitakka and vicar a are both sub-verbal and so don’t qualify as thought. Vitakka is the sub-verbal movement of the mind back into bliss. Vicara is the sub-verbal movement of mind that holds onto the bliss. Outside of Jhana, such movements of mind will often generate thought, and sometimes even speech. But in Jhana, vitakka and vicara are too subtle to create any thought. All they are capable of doing is moving mindfulness back onto bliss, and holding mindfulness there. This movement is the wobble of the First Jhana, represented as the pair of First Jhana factors vitakka and vicara.