Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas

by Leigh Brasington

In order to experience a jhāna, it is necessary to generate such seclusion, but actively desiring to experience a jhāna is not being secluded from the unwholesome mind state of craving. 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.

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.

In fact it is extremely helpful if you intentionally relax when you notice you’ve become distracted, and then gently reestablish attention on your meditation object. The mind state you are aiming to create could well be called relaxed diligence.

If you are paying close attention to the content of your distractions, you will notice that most distractions fall into one (or more) of the hindrance categories.

Ayya offered a simile that you might find helpful. Suppose you want to drive from your home to, for example, a retreat center many hours away. Suppose someone gives you excellent directions. If the directions start out by saying something like, “When you get to the end of your street, turn right. When you get to such and such a highway, turn left,” it does you no good to start looking for the retreat center as you drive down your street toward the first turn. In order to use the directions properly, you don’t focus on the destination; you determine where you currently are and what you’ll need to do next when you arrive at the place where you change from what you are doing now to something new. This is exactly how to approach learning the jhānas. Gain an understanding of the directions. Determine where you currently are and what “landmark” to look for so that you will know when to take the next step. Don’t focus on, or even think about, the destination.

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 gotten to access concentration is that you are fully present with the object of meditation.

If the breath gets very, very subtle, or if it disappears entirely, instead of taking a deep breath, shift your attention away from the breath to a pleasant sensation. This is the key thing. You notice the breath until you arrive at and sustain access concentration, and then you let go of the breath and shift your attention to a pleasant sensation, preferably a pleasant physical sensation. There is not much point in trying to notice the breath that has gotten extremely subtle or has disappeared completely—there’s nothing left to notice.

Look at most any statue of the Buddha: he has a faint smile on his face. That is not just for artistic purposes; it is there for teaching purposes. Smile when you meditate, because once you reach access concentration, you only have to shift your attention one inch to find a pleasant sensation.

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.

Don’t try to do the jhānas. You can’t. All you can do is generate the conditions out of which the jhānas can arise. Recognize when you’ve established these conditions, and then patiently wait for the jhāna to come find you.

Another problem that some students face is fear of loss of control. 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. What sometimes happens is that someone generates quite good access concentration, switches to the pleasant sensation, and eventually the pleasant sensation begins morphing into pīti. And that experience can be accompanied by a sense that something unintended is happening in one’s mental sphere—in other words, things are getting out of control. The fear generated in the face of this experience results in the person—intentionally or unintentionally—drawing back and shutting down the pīti, thereby blocking any jhānic experience. If you are faced with the above reaction, the first thing to realize is that you have never actually been in control of anything ever. All that you are losing is the illusion of being in control!

After spending an hour or two or three in access concentration, if you then enter the jhānas and work your way down to the fourth one, you will find that your visual field is filled with a bright whiteness, just as if you were sitting in an open field on a sunny day, covered from head to toe with a white sheet and you had your eyes open. At that level of concentration, the simile makes perfect sense.

You’re lost in the desert and you don’t have any water. It’s a pretty precarious position. You come over a little rise and in the distance you see what might be palm trees—or it might be a mirage. You head that way and it’s not changing. You start encountering people; they have wet hair, they have bundles of wet clothing; it is an oasis! You get really excited: first jhāna. You come to the oasis, it’s beautiful, there’s a huge pool of cool, clear water. You’re so happy: second jhāna. You drink the water, you jump in, cool off, get cleaned up, get out, you are contented: third jhāna. Then you lie down in the shade of a tree and have a rest: fourth jhāna.1 This really does capture what it’s like to move through these four states with their familiar glee, happiness, contentment, and equanimity.

The jhānas were not invented; they were discovered. People in India had been practicing mindfulness of breathing for many centuries by the time of the Buddha. They had been stumbling into deep, stable states of concentration for a very long time. Eventually these states were codified and arranged in order of increasing subtlety of object. By the fifth century b.c.e., these were well known and were being taught—Master Gotama learned them from his two teachers before he became the Buddha.

There is a Tibetan story about a young man who studied for many years with a master. Finally his teacher told him it was time to go off on his own and meditate. He found a cave not too far from a village where he could go on alms rounds and settled in to practice. During the next 20 years, he learned to walk on water—a shortcut to town since there was a river between his cave and the village. One day he was in town and heard news that his old master was coming for a visit. He excitedly returned home to his cave and made it as nice as he could. And sure enough a few days later his master appeared. They had a joyful reunion. After exchanging many greetings and good wishes, his master said to him, “Well, what have you learned in these 20 years?” The no-longer-so-young man stood up, walked down to the river, and strode across to the other side. He came back all smiles. But his master said to him, “You fool! You’ve wasted 20 years of your life! There’s a bridge a quarter mile upstream.”

Concentration, when imbued with ethics, brings great fruit and profit. Wisdom, when imbued with concentration, brings great fruit and profit. The mind imbued with wisdom becomes completely free from the āsavas, that is, from the intoxicants of sensuality, of becoming, of false views and of ignorance. (DN 16.1.12)

What we find as the last step of the gradual training is that after you have concentrated your mind via the fourth jhāna, when one’s mind is thus concentrated, pure and bright, unblemished, free from defects, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, one directs and inclines it to the knowledge of the destruction of the āsavas. One understands as it really is: “This is dukkha.” One understands as it really is: “This is the origin of dukkha.” One understands as it really is: “This is the cessation of dukkha.” One understands as it really is: “This is the way leading to the cessation of dukkha.” One understands as it really is: “These are the āsavas.” One understands as it really is: “This is the origin of the āsavas.” One understands as it really is: “This is the cessation of the āsavas.” One understands as it really is: “This is the way leading to the cessation of the āsavas.” Knowing and seeing thus, one’s mind is liberated from the āsava of sensual desire, from the āsava of becoming, and from the āsava of ignorance. (DN 2.99)

May (I/you/all beings) be happy. May (I/you/all beings) be healthy. May (I/you/all beings) be safe. May (I/you/all beings) be at peace.