iMEDITATION

 It is helpful to spend the first ten minutes easing in to the breath meditation, instead of directly focusing on the breath the moment we sat down. We do this by first bringing the mind back to this moment and notice what is here.

1. First, rest your awareness on the BODY until SOUNDS become vivid in your awareness. 

2. Then focus on SOUNDS until inner chatter settles down and the BREATH  becomes vividly noticeable.

3. Finally, rest your awareness on the incoming and outgoing breath until the gap of the breath becomes vividly noticeable.

In this way, the mind goes from a concrete meditation object to more, and more subtle meditation objects as the meditation progress. 

 Jhana Guided Meditation For Contentment, Insight, and Awakening

Tips: Please stay with the breath after the guided audio stops to become fully established in stage 3 and allow stage 4 to unfold.

When the breath naturally becomes vivid in your awareness, just let the breath does the breathing while you simply watch without interfering. Be mindful of how you relate to whatever thoughts that arise, making sure you don't create aversion or desire towards it. When you know the breath going in and out  for ~ 100 breaths in a row (naturally without forcing)  , not missing one, that is the third stage of meditation.

Note: You should spend the first year on this first section alone ( step 1-3) . When this beginning section is done correctly and successfully, the next step will unfolds naturally on its own sometime during this period. Then you can expand to include it also. If not, just repeat these 3 steps for another year, eventually it will happens.

Awareness of the GAP Also

4. Rest your attention on THE FULL BREATH ( in, out, gap) until JOY ( rapture) comes up.

5. Then place your attention on the GAP only until the breath seems like it disappears (because you are focusing on the gap)  and only JOY & INNER HAPPINESS (piti- sukkha) remain.

 Next, rest your attention on JOY & INNER HAPPINESS until they CALM also .

Jhana Guided Meditation (Stage 4-5)

- Questions & Answers with Ajahn Brahm

Visualization Layer: Seeing Nimmitta

  This stage is achieved when one lets go of all awareness of the body and its 5 senses, the breath, and thought completely. The breath disappear, not when you want it to but when there is enough calm, leaving only the nimmitta ( a beautiful white light, golden star, blue pearl, etc.). It is the mind consciousness freed for the first time from the world of the 5 senses.  

Bliss Layer: Jhana (Samadhi)

 In exhilaration, the mind becomes excited: " Wow, this is it!" If the mind thinks like this, then jhana is unlikely to happen.  So leave all the wows until after emerging from the jhana. 

Another likely obstacle to jhana can be fear.  The doer is silent before entering the jhana, but it is still there. Inside the jhana, however, the doer is completely gone. The fear we have is of surrendering this essential part of one's identity.  Have the courage to fully relinquish control for awhile and let the jhana warmly embrace you in an effortless, bodiless, ego-less, and blissful experience that will be the most profound of your life. 

 Note: Having spiritual pride after a jhana can leads to  one's downfall instead of forward towards Awakening.

" Be Still and Know":

Ajahn Brahm emphasizes that " Any meditator who has experienced the powerful Jhanas would know what a mind without any Hindrances is truly like. The meditator who hasn't known Jhanas does not realize the  many subtle forms Hindrances can take.  They may think that the hindrances are abandoned but ( they are just dormant and can erupt if given the right condition), the truth is , they just don't see them and so do not get great results in their meditation."

 From Jhana to Enlightenment

The fourfold  " Focus of Mindfulness" ( Sathipathana Sutta) instruct one what to do when one has emerged from a Jhana, to uncover the deeply disguised delusion of a Soul and then see what the Lord Buddha saw, the Truth of Anatta. Having patiently completed the necessary preparations, the meditator sustains their mindfulness on one of the four focuses: their own body, the pleasure and pain associated with each sense, the mind consciousness and the objects of mind. This can take only seven days or more for one to become a stream enterer, once returner, non-returner, or Arahant. ( given one already has jhana before  Sathipathana). The Anapanasati Sutta takes one from Breath meditation to Jhana, and from Jhana to liberating insight of  Anatta. 

Ajahn Brahm explains that wisdom is like a match, and Jhana is like gun powder. When you have one without the other, you can't really do much. But when you have both and put the two together, Bang! Awakening!....listen to all

There is no jhana without wisdom;

There is no wisdom without jhana;

But for one with both jhana and wisdom,

They are in the presence of nibbana.

- Buddha