Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas

by Leigh Brasington

emotional component apart from the physical component,

stay focused on the experience of pīti-sukha. Maintaining this pīti-sukha experience and the focus on it constitutes the first jhāna.

You just have to seclude your mind from the hindrances, and this is what will generate the pīti and sukha.

Suppose a skilled bath attendant or his apprentice were to pour soap flakes into a metal basin, sprinkle them with water and knead them into a ball, so that the ball of soap flakes would be pervaded by moisture, encompassed by moisture, suffused by moisture inside and out and yet would not trickle. In the same way one drenches, steeps, saturates and suffuses one’s body with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion, so that there is no part of one’s body that is not suffused by rapture and happiness.

Pīti

kundalini

tummo,

Patience and the careful observation of exactly what one has done when the jhāna does appear are the keys to more frequent experiences of jhāna.

vitakka thinking vicāra examining

At the time of the Buddha and probably for more than a century after his death, vitakka meant “thinking,” and vicāra meant “examining” or “pondering” or “evaluating” or “considering.” The combination “vitakka and vicāra” is a case of synonymous parallelism, a rhetorical device, which occurs very frequently in the suttas.

comfortable,

gratitude—gratitude

current neuroscience research has shown that gratitude practice begins the process of shutting down the so-called default-mode network, which is responsible for many of our distractions.

motivation.

determination—not

mettā (loving-kindness)

Mettā practice enhances the positive mind state generated moments earlier by the gratitude practice, as well as starting to generate some concentration.

“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile.”

recapitulation—what

remember anything that might be relevant.

reflect on impermanence—all

Directly experiencing this is insight into impermanence, one of the three “marks of existence,” which constitute the primary areas of exploration that lead to liberating insight.

insight:

Insights really only have a transformative capacity

dedicate the merit

“May the merit from this meditation period be for the liberation of all beings everywhere.”

just before you get up from your seat, resolve to be mindful as you arise and go about your activities.

Visuddhimagga

Mindfulness of Breathing Probably the most frequently used method of generating access concentration is the practice known as ānāpānasati.a The first word, ānāpāna, means “in-breath and out-breath,” and the word sati means “mindfulness.” The practice is therefore “mindfulness of breathing.”

The phrase parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā, often translated as “one sets up mindfulness before oneself,” would literally be translated as “one sets up mindfulness at the mouth/entrance.”

mettā practice:

“unconditional love.”

You might then switch to just saying the key words: happy, healthy, safe, peace. And

S. N. Goenka

Ba Khin

Ayya Khema

Ajahn Sumedho

Visuddhimagga