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December 11, 2015 - April 16, 2017
What distinguishes access concentration from jhāna is this shift into a flow state characterized by conditions five through seven above.
After some practice, the very process of returning to jhāna when you slip out becomes part of the whole flow experience. Eventually, the periods spent in the jhāna become longer and more pleasant. This is the first whole body jhāna
For now, if you ever find the focus of your attention shifting to pleasure, abandon the jhāna and bring yourself to a state of full alertness immediately. Absorption without metacognitive awareness isn’t really jhāna, even if it’s pleasant.
Practice this first jhāna whenever conditions are right for access. Always notice exactly what’s happening in the mind just before you enter jhāna. You will thereby become more familiar with those conditions, and it will be easier to recreate them in the future.
You have mastered Stage Six once you have subdued subtle distractions, and can sustain a high level of metacognitive introspective awareness. Your mindfulness is quite strong, and you perceive the meditation object clearly and vividly. You also have complete control over your scope of attention, allowing you to examine any object with as broad or narrow a focus as you choose.
The most rewarding and joyous aspects of meditation await you.
First, you don’t need to acquire any new skills. Just keep practicing the skills you’ve already mastered, and they’ll produce profound changes in how the mind-system works.
Second, everything occurring in these Stages is actually part of a single, continuous process: unification of mind
Third, as unification proceeds, you’ll experience a variety of bizarre sensory phenomena, spontaneous body movements, and the arising of powerful energy. These accompany transformations occurring in the mind-system and eventually culmin...
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Fourth, the practice of an adept inevitably leads to powerful Insight experiences rich with the potential for actual Insight
The transition from skilled to adept meditator essentially means shifting from training the mind to transforming the mind. Understanding this difference is very important.
the transition from skill development to transforming the way the mind works actually began in Stage Six with pacifying the mind. Continuously applying the skill of ignoring mental objects caused a shift in functioning of the mind-system that kept the problem from arising in the first place. The discriminating mind stopped projecting mental objects into consciousness as potential distractions. Metacognitive awareness and the acquired appearance of the meditation object are other examples of shifts in mental functioning that resulted from simply continuing to exercise certain skills.
To give you a sense of the difference between developing basic skills versus the exercise of mastery, think of what it means to become a virtuoso musician. First, you must master all the necessary skills—scales, chord progressions, ornamentations, and so forth. Once those skills are mastered, you then move into the realm of artistry, which involves improvisation, mood, and nuance. Skills provide you with the foundation, but creative improvisation moves at another level and needs its own process of maturation. Yet another aspect of virtuosity is cooperative interaction; when playing in a group,
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A significant proportion of the discriminating sub-minds, rather than simply growing quiet, become unified in support of the single, conscious intention to sustain an exclusive focus of attention. The result is complete pacification of the discriminating mind, also known as mental pliancy
the many discriminating and sensory sub-minds start working together in harmony. This unification is what gives rise to śamatha.
As the mind unifies, the senses become pacified and meditative joy arises. These two processes are different, but connected, and happen at the same time. Each has its own special characteristics.
Pacification of the senses comes from consistently ignoring sensory information presented in awareness. Sensory sub-minds eventually stop projecting their content into consciousness.
As pacification of the bodily senses unfolds, you’ll likely experience some bizarre physical sensations and autonomic reactions before you reach physical pliancy.
Proprioception—awareness
meditative absorptions,
Meditative Joy: From Energy Currents to the Bliss of Mental Pliancy The feeling of energy currents moving through the body is related to and precedes the arising of meditative joy. These currents grow stronger and more defined as meditative joy becomes more fully established.
The arising of meditative joy is preceded by feelings of energy currents moving through the body. These currents grow stronger and more defined as meditative joy becomes more fully established.
Common autonomic reactions are salivating, sweating, tears, and the occasional runny nose.
Some meditators experience racing heartbeat or irregular heartbeats, as though your heart is turning over in your chest.
Working with inner energy currents and channels is a recurrent theme in many traditions. This energy is variously called chi or qi, prāna, kriyā, kundalinī, or inner wind. There are detailed systems describing the channels, meridians, nādis, and chakras through which it flows, and there are powerful practices for working with this energy.
If you experience these more intense manifestations, you may need to work intentionally with the energy in some way. Tai chi, qigong, and yoga can all be helpful additions to formal meditation because they work directly with the energy movements in the body.
If you’ve practiced Experiencing the Whole Body with the Breath, you’re already familiar with these energy currents. Your increasing awareness of them will develop more gradually and easily.
Figure 46. The flow of energy becomes a circular and continuous movement between the body core and extremities, and the base of the
spine and the head. You might also perceive a continuous energy exchange with the universe around you, through the top of the head, the base of the spine, and the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.
Remember, these energy currents are actually manifestations of unification of mind and lead to a menta...
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As the mind grows unified, the strange sensations leading to physical pliancy and the energy currents and involuntary movements preceding meditative joy all happen at the same time.
The intertwined process of strange sensations leading to physical pliancy, and energy currents and movement leading to meditative joy, is described as developing over five successive “grades of pīti.”
The description that best characterizes Grade IV pīti, however, is incomplete and interrupted arising of meditative joy.
Sensations of electricity or powerful energy currents will surge coarsely through the body. These
the biggest obstacles are often the hindrances of aversion and agitation due to worry and remorse
Physical pliancy and meditative joy are quick and easy for some, but slow and arduous for others. The biggest obstacles are the hindrances of aversion, and agitation due to worry and remorse.
Ill-will and aversion keep physical pliancy and bliss from arising. Unpleasant bodily sensations during pacification are often due to unconsciously held negative emotions.
Psychology and medical science have shown how unconscious mental processes, such as aversion, can find expression through bodily sensations and physical changes.
Agitation due to worry and remorse keeps meditative joy from arising. Until you’ve achieved some inner resolution, remorse about past misdeeds and worry about the future will agitate the mind.
As an adept, you can’t separate meditation from the rest of your life. The influence of everything else you think, feel, say or do on your meditation practice is simply too great.
The practices of generosity, virtue, patience, and joyful effort are indispensable for success in the more advanced Stages, and will yield immeasurable benefits in the rest of your life as well.
The Mindful Review practice in Appendix E makes daily reflection into a powerful tool for personal change.
In one who is joyful, rapture arises. In one who is rapturous, the body grows calm. One whose body is calmed experiences ease. In one at ease, the mind becomes concentrated.
From this point forward, you will increasingly have Insight experiences that can trigger the kind of Insight (vipassanā) that leads to Awakening. This is the real goal of meditation practice.
mindfulness in the form of metacognitive awareness doesn’t allow them to go unrecognized. This may come as a surprise, but Insight experiences aren’t uncommon, even among people without meditation training.
As Insight accumulates, your understanding of yourself in relationship to the world changes. The effects can be enormously unsettling. Awakening is not without its price of admission.
there are five key Insights that lead to Awakening: impermanence, emptiness, the causal interdependence of all phenomena, the nature of suffering, and the illusoriness of a separate Self. The fifth, Insight into no-Self, is the culminating Insight that actually brings Awakening.
Fortunately, there are ways of easing this transition. There are five factors that will minimize the psychological trauma associated with maturing Insight, and smooth the transition to Awakening.
How fully you’ve experientially verified for yourself the descriptions of the Mind-System presented in the Fifth and Seventh Interludes.
How effective you’ve been in reducing Self-clinging and subsequent craving by using the Mindful Review practice described in Appendix E.
