April 30, 2014 Wednesday Morning, Emerald Isle Retreat, Morning Instructions - Jhana discussion

Including a discussion of jhana

Barbara: Good morning. I'd like to talk about dependent origination this morning. This is the process described in Buddha Dharma wherein body and mind connect with an object and how mind relates to the object.

We have five physical senses; eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body; and also the mind as a sense organ. From the mundane level, my eye sees an object such as a face and seeing consciousness arises. Contact and consciousness. In seeing, just seeing. With contact and consciousness, feeling and perception arise. If what I see is pleasant, I know that it's a pleasant experience. If what I see is unpleasant, it's an unpleasant experience. This is the feeling. It may also be neutral. However, the same thing can be pleasant or unpleasant from one moment to the next.

Perception arises and the perception influences the feeling. Forgive me if this is a gross example, but if I see somebody vomit, that might be a very unpleasant thing to see. However, if my toddler has just eaten something very poisonous, I stick my finger in their throat to induce vomiting, and they vomit, I'll be overjoyed! Pleasant, unpleasant. So we start to see that pleasant, unpleasant and neutral are not in the object itself but also in our perception of the object and our past relationship, our past experience with the object.

Based on the feeling, mental formations arise, such as grasping or aversion. Mental formations are experienced in the mind but  also in the body. Aversion arises and there's a mental thought of aversion. There's a body contraction with aversion. Or something beautiful, “Oh, I want that!” and grasping arises, felt in the mind and in the body.

This is a foundation for our vipassana practice. For many people, let's say the object is perceived as back pain and the back is starting to cramp up sitting. Throbbing, burning, unpleasant. We're taught as it changes or dissolves to bring attention back to the primary object, to the breath. I can misuse that teaching. I can note, “throbbing, burning, unpleasant, aversion-- bring attention back to my breath,” and I may use that to get away from the experience of the back pain. Then I never have a chance to really explore the experience of the back sensation itself, or of the aversion, and how I habitually relate to it. So I may have a very strong habit to first harden against pain and then to close my heart to it, push it away and say, “No, I'll return to my breath.”

If the pain is overwhelming, of course that can be skillful; if we're at a point where we really can't stay with the pain. But in most situations it's not that the pain is overwhelming, it's just that we don't want it. “This is not where I want to be. I want peace and light in my practice. I don't want to sit here with pain all morning.” But we can learn so much more about ourselves and our habitual tendencies and what creates our suffering by simply staying with it and watching, “How am I relating to this?”

So we see what is the predominant object of the moment, and the attitude we have toward that object: one of trying to distance ourselves from it, to control it, or to be a martyr and say, “I'll just stay here—Ahh, they're cutting my leg off! It's okay, I'll just stay here.” We need to respond with kindness to ourselves. But also, if what we really aspire to is freedom from suffering, we need to be willing to stay present with unpleasant objects.

Pleasant objects provide seemingly less challenge to stay with, and yet with pleasant objects we often spin out into fantasies. Sitting here in this 8-bedroom house, the fantasy has arisen a number of times, “Oooh, I'd love to rent this house for my extended family and spend a week's vacation here. We'd be able to go to the beach, the kids could play pool. We could show movies in here.” Mind runs off into that fantasy. I really have to keep catching it. “Fanticizing. Day dreaming.”  

What is the unpleasant ground under this fantasy? When I look at that, well, I love teaching the dhamma, sharing the dhamma, so that's not an unpleasant part of it. But boy, I sure would like a vacation. I was supposed to have a cruise vacation last month, and time on Caribbean beaches and snorkeling. I don't know if any of you heard this story, but the boat was stuck in Galveston Harbor because of an oil spill. Instead of spending my days snorkeling, sailing and lying on beaches at each port, I spent the days in 50-degree weather, drizzle, in Galveston Harbor. This was not the vacation I'd been longing and planning for!

So I can see that there's still some anger under there. I didn't get what I wanted. On one level, there was a lot of equanimity about it. It was a pleasant week, all told, mostly sitting in my stateroom reading books; catching up on email and reviewing transcripts; getting up and taking a walk around the sheltered part of the deck; playing gin rummy with my husband; eating good food. We even went dancing! There was nothing unpleasant about it. But I didn't get what I wanted. Here's the beach—“Oh, this is what I was longing for.” And then the fantasy comes up to have a beach vacation.

So we have to open our hearts to ourselves and be honest with ourselves. Of course there's nothing wrong with that fantasy, but if mind engages with it over and over again, it's keeping me from presence with things as they are. It is keeping me from my meditation. It's keeping me from deepening. Do I want to fantasize about the lovely vacation I could have with my family here in this house, or do I want to meditate? What am I planning to do with my time this week?

So we see that level, let's call it the mundane level of mundane mind touching an object, and the habitual tendencies that flow through, the way we relate to that object. A second level of being with objects is what we might call bare perception. There's seeing without any embellishment, no stories about what is seen. I look out on the beach and instead of the “Oh, I could bring all the kids and grandkids down. Eight bedrooms, we'd have plenty of space. Wow! Let's do it!” - instead of that immediately coming up and running with it, I can see the impulse and say, “No, I'm not going there.” As soon as thought is noted, you're no longer thinking that thought. There may be an impulse wanting to entertain the thought and play with the thought. But there's also the very clear intention to deepen in practice.

We've talked about the clear comprehension practice. In this moment, what's predominant in my intentions? Is it the deepening of practice? Therefore I don't want to play with this fantasy. Seeing the impulse to go with the fantasy, I just bring kindness to myself and come back to the open heart, come back to the present moment, and then there's just seeing the ocean, seeing the waves. Bare perception. That aspect of my mind that's not engaged with ego and thinking, just present with it all.

That's still from a level somewhat of the mundane mind. As practice deepens, we move into a spacious awareness. And we've talked this week about the distinction between consciousness and awareness. Just resting in this spaciousness. Resting in spaciousness in that way, there's no possibility of these stories coming up. That aspect of my mind is simply not engaged. So it's not that I turn this switch off and turn that switch on in a conscious way, but I start the sitting with the intention not to get hooked into stories, with the intention to see what it is that keeps me on this wheel, on this treadmill. To find freedom.

When mind engages in these little stories—“story, story,” I open back up into a broad space of awareness, where, not the mundane mind but really supramundane awareness is fully present. And from supramundane awareness I have a different insight into the nature of impermanence and the no-self nature of what arises.

It's like the difference between seeing the ocean while sitting up here on the balcony, or getting into the ocean and feeling the waves, being present within the waves. So from my vipassana practice I'm still an observer on the outside. We use the term “observer,” observing mind. Where in pure awareness practice, there's nothing separate from me. I'm right there in the middle of it. Each has a value.

So I wanted to talk a bit here just about how these practices come together, and that you can note when you are more deeply in that observing mind, watching the whole flow of experience. Seeing, tasting, touching, thinking, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, perception; perhaps mental formations arising, perhaps just equanimity. We see this is still from a self. And going beyond the self, just opening into that spaciousness.

With the observer and self, there is the opportunity for insight into the non-self nature of all conditioned objects and their impermanence. From awareness, there is no thought, only the memory of that space later., But each supports the other.

For me a primary route into that spaciousness is watching the endings of objects that have arisen, even just the breath. Exhale—do it with me. Inhale... exhale... inhale, really bringing attention to the beginning, middle, and end of the inhale, and then exhale, beginning, middle, end of the exhale. Inhale, exhale... Now inhale, beginning, middle, end... Right there where the inhale ends, feel the space. Beginning, middle, end of the exhale, space. I'm going to get my talking out of the way—just do it. Right at the end of the inhale, before the exhale starts, can you feel that space?

(breathing)

Right at the end of the exhale, before the inhale starts, can you feel that space?

(breathing)

And then the breath comes again. You don't try to hold your breath, you're just aware of the space, and it's timeless. So although it's only a fraction of a second, it extends forever. It's like coming to the border of the sky, and you just see this piece of sky but it extends forever, off into outer space. Can you feel that space?

How many of you have used nada as a primary object? Anybody who does not know what nada is? For those of you who have not used nada, you might want to notice if you hear it. How many have used luminosity as a primary object? Same thing. We call these—nada, luminosity, spaciousness, a certain energy, a scent like honeysuckle, a taste that's very sweet—we call these Direct Expressions of the Unconditioned. So instead of using a mundane primary object, we're shifting to a supramundane primary object, what we call a direct expression of the Unconditioned. And this shifts our practice. It allows us to deepen into-- let's say, rather than sitting on the deck watching the ocean, getting into the ocean and feeling the waves from there.

There's a different experience of objects arising into spaciousness awareness than there is objects arising into the mundane conditioned mind and body. It's hard for me to articulate what the difference is. There's just much more ease. The part of me that wants to control objects, fix anything, it all dissolves and there's just ease, presence with what's arising and passing away. Because I'm not trying to hold onto anything, there's no “me” in it anymore, and no tension coming from attention based in the “me.” There is no one trying to hold onto anything, no one trying to push anything away. The whole of grasping and aversion falls away. If it's unpleasant, it's unpleasant and there's equanimity. If it's pleasant, it's pleasant and there's equanimity.

So I'm just trying to delineate a path of practice here of deepening practice. Each of you is in different places in your practices, and what comes up as you practice with this will be different. This is not a right way to practice; it's just some guidance that I hope will help some of you. We all tend to get stuck in the noting kind of vipassana practice, and the way it leads to a somebody who's trying to control this, hold on to that, push that away, and then judging ourselves for doing that. Saying, “I should be beyond that in my practice.” And not even catching the reality that judgment is just another object. So this is a way to back away from it into more spaciousness.

We have some time for questions.

Q: Can you speak to the phenomenon of jhana states?1

Barbara: Jhana practice is a completely different part of this path. Jhana is a deepening concentration that absorbs itself into an object; one pointed concentration. There are eight stages of jhana, each one leading to a different, deepening experience. Because mind is so absorbed in the object, they lead to very blissful experiences. All of you, not while specifically practicing meditation, but all of you have experienced jhana. Does anybody play tennis? Okay, you're absorbed into that object when you're playing tennis. If your mind is wandering, you can't play. Anybody play a musical instrument? Can you feel, you're right there with that note. You're absorbed into it and there's a certain blissfulness in that absorption. Athletes call it “being in the zone.” It's being in that space where, when I'm there everything else is gone, just me and this instant. And I'm absorbed into the object. Dancing, fine arts; skiing comes to mind. One's has to be totally absorbed in this moment or will fall.

So this is first jhana, maybe even second jhana. There's a precise movement through the jhanas to eighth jhana, which is a very profound experience. It's sometimes called “neither being nor non-being.”

There are two challenges with the jhanas. One, they lead to very blissful experience, and they can become a trap because they're so enjoyable; who wants to get back to that vipassana stuff where I've got to look at the difficult mind and body states that are arising? Let's just play in the jhanas! And the second challenge with it is it's a dead end. There's no enduring wisdom or insight, arising in jhana. The mind becomes very clear and concentrated, but then one has to take that clear and concentrated mind and come all the way back to access concentration.

Some schools of vipassana, for example the Burmese school, teach that one needs to stabilize jhana in order to experience access concentration; that there's got to be a strong concentration on an object, a material or non-material object, and then one needs to come back after that's established and come into access concentration. I do not agree with that, and for the most part the northern Thai teaching, the Forest Teaching of Ajahn Chah, for example, does not agree with that.

We talk instead about moment to moment concentration. Concentration is necessary, but when I'm concentrated on this fly buzzing around my head, there are many objects. Hearing, buzz, buzz, hearing, hearing, unpleasant, impulse, wanting to chase the fly or swat the fly, thinking, “How did the fly get in? Is there a hole in my screen?”;  wanting to get up and shut the window. Mind watches each new object but doesn't obsess about any of them. Mind is fully concentrated. It doesn't run off into stories. It catches the “Is there a hole in the window? I should get up.” As a thought, “thinking, thinking,” then,—ahh, come back. What's happening here is just aversion. Noting aversion in the mind and body; in aversion, only aversion. And when it goes, what remains?

So the degree of concentration we need for access concentration can come naturally and does not need jhana. There are teachers who would disagree with me, and I've had this discussion at length in Buddhist teacher's meetings with teachers of other traditions.2

Q: How do you avoid or differentiate entry into the Unconditioned via concentration with a primary object like chi, nada, luminosity?

Barbara: Touching the Unconditioned through jhana is not exactly the same as a deeper entry into it through the insight path, just touching it, through 7th jhana, known as the experience of “infinite awareness rests in ‘no-thing-ness,'” or 8th jhana, the experience of  “neither perception nor non-perception.” But jhana takes you to the entry to the Unconditioned and then you must backtrack to access concentration. So there is nothing to avoid. Nada or luminosity takes you into jhana, and after the jhana experience, you will return to insight and then access concentration.

With the insight path, there's spaciousness to the experience of nada, luminosity or chi. With jhana it's very one-pointed. With vipassana, using what I call the direct expressions of the Unconditioned as a primary object, luminosity or nada or spaciousness or energy, there's a lot of space. It's very open. My mind is not absorbing into one object but seeing everything arising and passing away, one object at a time but not absorbing into any of them. Mind experiences the whole flow of arising and passing away, and with equanimity. It's like being in the ocean and feeling the swell of the ocean lifting me up and lowering me down; and then another swell, lifting me up. And then suddenly there's a sharp wind on my face, touching, touching. That has my attention. And then the wind is gone. And then the water is flat. Still, still. Swell, lifting me up, putting me down. But jhana can't see that picture. Jhana is just focused into this swell, this object, and absorbing into this object. And it doesn't see anything around it.

For me in my experience, I find a subtle contraction in jhana. There's a subtle amount of self. I can't say that this is necessary to jhana. Probably a real jhana master doesn't experience this, but I'm not a jhana master. But having moved through 7 of the 8 jhanas, at that point I decided I didn't need to go any further because my goal was to open to the Unconditioned and I realized jhana was a dead end as far as direct experience of the Unconditioned. So, having achieved stability in the first seven jhanas I backed off because I was aware that there was a subtle contraction, a subtle piece of self that was not seen because I was only looking at the object within the jhana. There was someone who was trying to stay with, to control, to change it in some way, as opposed to just resting in awareness and experiencing the whole picture. And when I experience the whole picture, because I'm seeing this in relationship to that, then wisdom can arise. Does that answer your question?

Q: It's still a little confusing.

Barbara: I will email you some information on jhana, some basic information. I'd be glad to talk with you further about it after the retreat. Are you trying to do jhana practice?

Q: No, I'm trying to avoid it!

Barbara: Ahhh!

If you feel your energy field closing, attention becoming very narrow, contracting,...  just note, “closing, closing,” take a deep breath, and come back into spaciousness.

Q: Spaciousness with few arisings, but awareness pretty much only of the flow of energy, is not a jhana?

Barbara: It can be if NO arisings. It's not jhana if the mind stays open. In jhana, if a bee lands on your nose, there's no sense of the bee, there's only absorption into the object. With vipassana as insight practice, and also while resting in pure awareness, resting in spaciousness, aware of the ocean swells lifting body, dropping body, lifting body, dropping body, bee, bee, touching, touching. With access concentration there won't be aversion to it. There won't be fear or any reaction to it. But maybe there's a seagull who landed on my head. I'm aware of it! In jhana practice, it's just not there. So with spaciousness there is holding this open window of awareness rather than getting too tight and narrow.

Q: Two nights ago you talked about your deep meditation experience when John was present with you, I assume it was at your lake house. My recollection was you were in a stream, and on the banks of the stream was your family.

Barbara: We were in my house in Ann Arbor. John had come in to lead a retreat with me. This was probably about 1990. We were up very early in the morning, sitting. I was practicing in the way I've described with vipassana, noting objects, first mundane objects and then increasingly subtle objects. The mapped vipassana Path of Insights and Knowledges, there's a very specific map. We don't give you the map because we don't want you saying, “Well, where am I on the map? What's next?” We just want you to be present. But in teacher training we teach this map, because we want teachers to understand where their students might be.

The map talks about presence with objects arising, seeing objects arising and passing away, sometimes with aversion or grasping at the objects, but eventually with what's called Equanimity with Formation, Equanimity with Arising and Dissolution. I'll email this to you, don't take notes, just listen. I'll email this map to anybody who wants it.

As practice deepens, there is contact and consciousness, sensation, perception, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. But simply equanimity with it all. There's no contraction around any object. There are no thoughts that arise.

At that point, we come to the necessary step of Equanimity with Arising and Dissolution. Sometimes we have students practice this by directing you to stay with dissolving objects. Normally we bring attention to new objects arising into our experience, but it can be a very different practice to watch objects dissolving from our experience and then what? Listen to the bell. First I want you to hear the bell arising, and as soon as the sound has gone, come back to your breath. Do that first. (bell)

There's not much sense of space in that. (continuing to listen as sound dissolves)

Now I want you to hear the bell, ear organ touching sound, contact and consciousness, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. Stay with the sound as it fades away, and then go where the sound went. That's the only way I can phrase it. Just die out with the sound. Effortless effort; don't try to go somewhere; just be. Go into that emptiness. Watch for yourself whether there is any aversion to the dissolving sound, aversion to the dissolving sense of self, because there is a subtle self there listening to the sound. As the sound dissolves, the self dissolves. If there is any aversion to that dissolution, that aversion, that tension, becomes the new object. Simply note it as aversion. But if there's no aversion, just go out with the bell. Rest in that spaciousness, no need to go anywhere. (bell)

One more time. Ear will note the arising of a sound, touching the sound, and then the dissolution. Stay with the dissolution and just go out with the sound. (bell)

What did you experience as the bell went out?

Q: My mind went out too. It felt like it was being stretched more than it is comfortable with. And then there was a jerk through my body.

Barbara: Coming back to the mundane experience. Others?

Q: Mind went more into some heaviness in my heart.

Barbara: So, a new mundane object. You were not able to fully stay with the bell as it went out, but a new mundane object superimposed itself. Were you able to note that? Okay. So then we watch that until it dissolves.

Q: The sound started as very complex. And as it was disappearing, it became more and more simple, until the simplicity was even gone.

Barbara: Was there a feeling of spaciousness as it went?

Q: I'd say it was more nothing.

Barbara: Okay. Nothing is fine. Is there equanimity with nothing? That is a form of spaciousness. Not contracting around this or that, not contracting around nothing. Any others?

Q: I felt as though, I don't really want to use the word felt, but I was floating on the tail of the bell. And then I just entered into a resting spaciousness.

Barbara: Sounds fine.

Q: The same experience as Q. When you said, “What is your experience?” I was still in the floating spaciousness, trying to decide if you were talking to us!

Barbara: I want to get us on to sitting. Aaron says that he may talk briefly tonight, just for 15 or 20 minutes, and then let us continue this dialogue. So, just quickly finishing my answer to Q.

There is a progression of insights, and a very important one is Equanimity with Arising and Dissolution. There are many ways we come to that—through wisdom, through the open heart, but eventually we come to that.

What I was describing was, in meditation I had a strong image of being in a boat, passing down a stream, a river, and everything I loved was on the banks, but I was going past them. I couldn't hold on to them. There was not equanimity about it. Just doing my practice, noting lack of equanimity. This went on for 10 or 15 minutes, just seeing everything arising and dissolving. Because of the strength of my practice at that point, within that 10 or 15 minutes, finally released into equanimity, but it was a false equanimity. It was with the idea, “Well, they still exist, they're just back there.” Note that this was not access concentration. Things were clearly pleasant or unpleasant.

Then the images started appearing in perfect likeness, but as ash. And Aaron said to me, “You must touch each one as it goes by,” and each time I touched one, it crumbled completely. There was so much anguish, a real sense, “I can't hold onto anything. It really is all impermanent.” And trusting the flow of it, something in me just let go of trying to hold on. That was the genuine equanimity with dissolution, a quick move into access, and allowed the, the technical phrasing of it is the lokuttara citta, the supramundane consciousness to, I don't want to say to open, it's always open, it allowed me to touch that supramundane consciousness.

We have to be very careful with words. It wasn't a “me”. It allowed awareness to enter fully into that supramundane consciousness, which is capable of perceiving the Unconditioned because it's no longer hooked into the conditioned realm. But to do that, to allow that shift into non-attachment and non-aversion, that true equanimity, breaking those ashes was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I said in my meditation, “I can't do this alone.” Just at that point I felt John come in and sit beside me, and I just took his hand. And there was this small link that assured me I would not annihilate myself. It would be safe to go into this space. I was not talking to John, nothing was happening except the feeling this link is holding me, re-grounding me to earth. I will not disappear. I can fully enter this space. And then a very profound experience of the Unconditioned, the first full opening into the Unconditioned that I've ever experienced.

Does that answer your question?

Q: Yes and no.

Barbara: Let's pick it up tonight with Aaron's question period.

(recording ends)

email dialogue on Jhana: Since I am inexpert on jhana I turned part odf this transcript over to a colleague,  with Leigh Brasington. He graciously replied to my questions and gave me permission to share his response.

Date: August 24, 2014 12:29:24 PM EDT

Dear Leigh, Today I'm reviewing the transcript from an annual week long retreat I led last May with my most experienced students. This question and my reply came up in the transcript. Reading my reply, I realize i don't know enough about 8th jhana to know if my reply is accurate. In that correspondence 10 years ago I think we did agree that the jhanas do not lead into a direct experience of the Unconditioned.

LB: This is correct.  And your answer below is right on.  The jhanas are always a dualistic experience - hence there is a subject (usually not noticed when the concentration is really good) and an object (the primary factor of the jhana).

Barbara: Here is the piece of the May transcript. This excerpt  is just  from an instruction period, and not reviewed or polished, just as-is. We had been talking at some length about jhana vs insight. I'll omit that long discussion, but happy to pass it on if you wish to see it. The question was about experience of the Unconditioned. My question to you is about the bold  sentence in paragraph 3. Do you experience that extremely subtle sense of contraction in the formless jhanas? If so, how do you work with that?

LB: I don't experience it as a contraction - but definitely a sense of an observer, tho it's not usually noticed except in retrospect.  But it's always there - so I can well understand feeling it as a sense of contraction, altho that's not the word I would use.  I guess I go with "observer" - it's pretty neutral.

Barbara: Touching the Unconditioned through jhana is not exactly the same as a deeper entry into it through the insight path, just touching it, through 7th jhana, sometimes known as the experience of “infinite awareness rests in ‘no-thing-ness,'” or 8th jhana, the experience of  “neither perception nor non-perception.”

LB: But these are just names for mental patterns that are perceived (sañña) as "No-thingness" and “Neither perception nor non-perception.”  I do not give them any ontological existence or even any sort of extra mental existence other than a "mental state" - a refined one for sure, but just a mental state.  And those mental states are definitely not the same as the realization of Nibbana!

Barbara: But jhana takes you to the entry to the Unconditioned and then you must backtrack to access concentration.

LB: I'd phrase it as jhana takes you to a place beyond the usual ego-centric view of the world from which, once you leave the jhana, you have a much better chance of accessing the Unfabricated.  [I find the word "Unconditioned" to be a poor translation of asaá¹"khataṃ - I like Than Geoff's "Unfabricated" much better.]

Barbara: So there is nothing to avoid. Focus on nada or luminosity takes you into jhana, and after the jhana experience, you will return to insight and then access concentration.

LB: I would say you return to access concentration and then insight.

Barbara: With the insight path, there's spaciousness to the experience of nada, luminosity or chi. With jhana it's very one-pointed.

LB: Yes, this is the key difference.

Barbara: With vipassana, using what I call the direct expressions of the Unconditioned as a primary object, luminosity or nada or spaciousness or energy, there's a lot of space. It's very open. Mind is not absorbing into one object but seeing everything arising and passing away, one object at a time but not absorbing into any of them. Mind experiences the whole flow of arising and passing away, and with equanimity. It's like being in the ocean and feeling the swell of the ocean lifting me up and lowering me down; and then another swell, lifting me up. And then suddenly there's a sharp wind on my face, touching, touching. That has my attention. And then the wind is gone. And then the water is flat. Still, still. Swell, lifting me up, putting me down. But jhana can't see that picture. Jhana is just focused into this swell, this object, and absorbing into the object. It doesn't see anything around it.

LB: Very accurate.

Barbara: For me in my experience, I find a subtle contraction in jhana. There's a subtle amount of self.

LB: As I say, I don't experience the self (observer) as a contraction - but I can easily understand why you would choose this word.  It is subtle and is for sure not unfabricated (i.e. definitely fabricated).

Barbara: I can't say that this is necessary to jhana.

LB: I think it is necessary.  The jhanas have a very specific object - and you can't have an object without generating a subject - me.

Barbara: Probably a real jhana master doesn't experience this, but I'm not a jhana master.

LB: I think anyone, master or not, would experience this subtle selfing due to the inevitable nature of the jhanas being wholly dualistic phenomena.

Barbara: But having moved through 7 of the 8 jhanas, and at that point I decided I didn't need to go any further because my goal was to open to the Unconditioned and I realized it was a dead end as far as direct experience of the Unconditioned.

LB: Correct in that being in these states guarantee not to take you there as long as you are in them.  But I wouldn't use the word "dead end."  Just like sharpening a knife doesn't cut you free, having a sharp knife works much better than having a dull one.  So I would not call knife sharpening "a dead end" - just a nice warm up for a better way to cut.

Barbara: So, having achieved stability in the first seven jhanas I backed off because I was aware that there was a subtle contraction, a subtle piece of self that was not seen because I was only looking at the object within the jhana. There was someone who was trying to stay with, to control, to change it in some way, as opposed to just resting in awareness and experiencing the whole picture.

LB: Correct.

Barbara: And when I experience the whole picture, because I'm seeing this in relationship to that, then wisdom can arise.

LB: And it is more likely to arise with a jhanicly concentrated mind because such a mind is sharper (less ego creation happening).

Barbara: Thanks for any thoughts you wish to share. My intention, of course, is not to pass on misinformation to these students. I would like to pass your comments on with the transcript, to those who attended the retreat.

LB: Good for you.  Certainly feel free to add my replies - if you find them helpful.

Metta,

Leigh

1 Because I am not a teacher of jhana, I took this  question about it and my replies to Leigh Brasington, a respected expert on Jhana. I'm pasting my questions to Leigh and his replies at the end of this transcript.

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