Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas

by Leigh Brasington

my sit bones slip onto the mat, but my tailbone remains on the cushion. The result is instantaneous. My hips are thrust forward, correctly aligning my vertebrae and thus relaxing all the muscle tension in my back, and a huge flood of joyous energy fills my whole being.

pīti.

right concentration is obviously an integral part of the Buddha’s path to awakening:b right concentration is the eighth item of the noblec eight-fold path and is often exemplified by and even defined as the four jhānas.

Buddha’s teachings can be divided into three parts: sīla, samādhi, and pañña: ethical conduct, concentration, and wisdom.

clean up your act, concentrate your mind, and use your concentrated mind to investigate reality.

samādhi

“concentration,”

“indistractability,”

The jhānas are eight altered states of consciousness, brought on via concentration and each yielding more concentration than the previous.

Upon emerging from the jhānas—preferably the fourth or higherf—you begin doing an insight practice with your jhānically concentrated, indistractable mind.g

The Relationship between Jhāna Practice and Insight Practice.”

Expectations are the worst thing you can bring on any retreat, and they are especially hindering when trying to learn jhānas.

willingness to “come and see for yourself.”2

sīla, moral discipline, ethical behavior.

sati

“mindfulness,”

Be here, now.

Satipaṭṭhāna Suttas.

The last of the preliminary practices that occurs in the gradual training is being content with little.

These four preliminary practices of keeping the precepts, guarding the senses, maintaining mindfulness, and being content with little are “off-the-cushion” practices that you need to make the four cornerstones of your basic way of life.

sutta discourse, teaching samādhi indistractability, concentration

The setting aside of unwholesome mind states is known as abandoning the hindrances. There are five of these hindrances, usually listed as sense desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. They could also be listed as wanting, aversion, too little energy, too much energy, and doubt. The overcoming of these five unwholesome states of mind is the same as generating access concentration.

upacāra-samādhi, which we translate as “access concentration,”

one-pointed concentration (appanā-samādhi), which is the stronger concentration associated with the jhānas.

We could define access concentration as concentration strong enough that no hindrances arise. More practically, we can define access concentration as being fully with the meditation object, and if there are thoughts, they are wispy and in the background and don’t pull you away into distraction. The general method for generating access concentration is to put your attention on a suitable meditation object,b and when your attention wanders off, gently bring it back. Keep doing this until the distractions fade away and your attention on the object is unwavering.

relaxed diligence.

The strategy is to place your attention on the meditation object and then be diligent about recognizing when you have become distracted. Drop the distraction; it might be helpful to label the distraction with a one-word label. Labeling helps you disidentify with the thought stream and provides insight into where your mind habitually goes when it becomes distracted. Just remember that the first label that comes to mind is always correct—spend zero energy trying to find the “perfect” label. Then—very important—relax, and return your attention to your meditation object.

method for entering the jhānas begins with generating access concentration.

It is probably better if you can observe the physical sensations at the nostrils or on the area between the nose and the upper lip, rather than at the abdomen or elsewhere. It is better because it is more difficult to do; therefore, you have to concentrate more.

When the thoughts are just slight, when they’re not really pulling you away and you’re fully with the sensations of the breath, knowing each in-breath and each out-breath—this is the sign that you’ve arrived at access concentration. Whatever method you use to generate access concentration, the sign that you’ve

As you start to become concentrated, you might notice various lights and colors even though your eyes are closed. These are signs that you are starting to get concentrated. There is generally nothing useful that can be done with them—just ignore them. When you actually do get quite concentrated, the random blobs and laser light shows will disappear. They might be replaced by a diffused white light, which is a sign of good concentration.

samādhi indistractability, concentration pāmojja gladness, worldly joy pīti glee, rapture, euphoria, ecstasy, delight sukha happiness, joy

Smile when you meditate, because once you reach access concentration, you only have to shift your attention one inch to find a pleasant sensation.

It’s also very important to let go of the breath when you make the shift to the pleasant sensation.

In this altered state of consciousness, you will be overcome with rapture . . . euphoria . . . ecstasy . . . delight.

pīti

So to summarize the method for entering the first jhāna: You sit in a nice comfortable upright position and generate access concentration by placing and eventually maintaining your attention on a single meditation object. When access concentration is firmly established, then you shift your attention from the breath (or whatever your meditation object is) to a pleasant sensation, preferably a pleasant physical sensation. You put your attention on that sensation, and maintain your attention on that sensation, and do nothing else.

Just simply observe the pleasant sensation. You must become totally immersed in the pleasantness of the pleasant sensation.

You are trying to do exactly the same thing, except, rather than a positive feedback loop of noise, you are attempting to generate a positive feedback loop of pleasure. You hold your attention on a pleasant sensation. That feels nice, adding a bit more pleasure to your overall experience. That addition is also pleasurable, adding even more pleasure, and so on, until, instead of getting a horrible noise, you get an explosion of pleasure that goes by the names of pīti and sukha.

dysthymia

nucleus accumbens

It simply is not possible to enter the first jhāna and be in control during the whole experience. You have to let go and let the pīti take over.

All that you are losing is the illusion of being in control!

The most common one is not allowing the access concentration to grow strong enough before shifting to a pleasant sensation—and that one has the easy remedy of patience. The second most common is some unresolved psychological issue surfacing. And although this can block access to the jhānas, it nonetheless is a valuable opportunity for growth. It seems that clearing away personal psychological issues is very helpful for preparing the mind for gaining the deeper transformative insights into the impersonal nature of reality.

samādhi indistractability, concentration pāmojja gladness, worldly joy vitakka thinking vicāra examining pīti glee, rapture sukha happiness/joy

THE JHĀNAS OCCUR in a large number of suttas,a not only in just the suttas that give the gradual training. The description is almost everywhere exactly the same.

Access concentration gets you to the point where, if there are thoughts occurring, they are wispy and in the background and they are not pulling you away into distraction. At that level of concentration, these hindrances will not arise.

“From gladness, rapture arises”: rapture (pīti) being the primary ingredient of the first jhāna. The unwavering attention on the gladness (the enjoyment of the pleasant sensation) generates the pīti, which is both the gateway to and the primary component of the first jhāna.

thinking and examining, rapture and happiness.

“one who is conscious of this pīti and sukha” tells us that our object of attention is now the experience of pīti and sukha.