In fact, even the translation of vitakka and vicāra as “thinking and examining” does not really accurately capture the meaning the phrase “vitakka and vicāra” has in relation to the jhānas. Remember above, Rhys Davids indicates that in the suttas, they are “used to denote one & the same thing: just thought, thinking, only in an emphatic way.” Perhaps the best translation of the sutta description of the first jhāna would be Quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, one enters and dwells in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by thinking and more thinking and
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