Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas

by Leigh Brasington

One of the understandings of the phrase “material jhānas” is that these jhānas have qualities that are possible to experience in the material world.

After “passing entirely beyond bodily sensations,” the description continues, “By the disappearance of all sense of resistance and by non-attraction to the perception of diversity.” The best way to understand this is to examine an explanation of how to enter the fifth jhāna. When you’re in the fourth jhāna, you may find yourself slumped over. Your energy is a bit low, and you should probably bring it up a bit by sitting more upright. Then what you need to do is find something that you can expand without limit. What Ayya Khema taught was to get in touch with the boundaries of your being and expand them so you fill the whole room. Once that feels stable, then expand them to fill the whole building. Once that is feeling fairly stable, then expand them to fill the neighborhood. Then expand farther and farther and farther, all the way to the horizon and beyond; just keep on with the expansion. Once you get to the horizon, let go of the perception of diversity, and then there are no more things you are expanding past. You’re not expanding past the moon and then Mars and then Jupiter. Forget all that; just simply focus on the sense of limitless expansion.

Here you are to imagine something you can expand, starting out by expanding past the things in your vicinity, expand farther past all objects, and stay focused on the sense of expansion. If you can do so, eventually, a vast, empty space will appear before you. Don’t look for the space; if you do that, you are not focused on the expansion and thereby prevent the infinite space from appearing. You have to just focus on the expansion, and eventually the endless space will come and find you. The first jhāna was not the pleasant sensation to which you switched your attention—you needed the pīti and sukha. This expansion is not the fifth jhāna—you need to wait patiently for the infinite space to appear.

As for the previous jhānas, you want to learn to maintain this state for 10 to 15 minutes. So you just sit there focused on the spaciousness that is the fifth jhāna. By passing entirely beyond the Sphere of Infinite Space, seeing that consciousness is infinite, one reaches and remains in Sphere of Infinite Consciousness. (DN 33.1.11.7)

The trick for moving to the sixth jhāna is to shift your attention from the space to your consciousness of the space.

When you are first learning the sixth jhāna, there might not seem to be a whole lot of difference between the fifth jhāna and the sixth. It’s a subtle shift unless your concentration is really strong and you are quite familiar with the qualities of both jhānas. It’s very helpful to go back and forth a few times between jhānas five and six—1-2-3-4-5-6-5-6-5-6—staying in both five and six for at least five minutes each time

You also want to become skilled enough that you can enter this state of infinite consciousness and remain in it for 10 to 15 minutes before moving on to learning/entering the next jhāna. By passing entirely beyond the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness seeing that there is no thing, one reaches and remains in the Sphere of No-Thingness. (DN 33.1.11.7) Maurice Walshe, in his translation of the Dīgha Nikāya, used “nothingness,” rather than “nothingness,” which is a very good idea since it gives a more accurate description of what the jhāna experience is like. It’s necessary in moving from the sixth jhāna toward the seventh to conjure up a sense of nothing. The trick is to become aware of the content of this infinite consciousness. The sense of space is long gone, and you realize the consciousness is not conscious of anything. It is conscious of nothing, no-thing. Put your attention on that sense of no-thing. The nothing, at first, may be a small nothing, sort of a basketball-sized nothing in front of your face. Then as you stay with it, you realize there’s nothing over here and nothing over there and nothing back there or anywhere. Then the nothing seems to be bigger, although it never really gets that infinite feel that you have in the fifth jhāna of the realm of infinite space, or the sixth jhāna of the realm of infinite consciousness. It just sort of goes from a little nothing to a big nothing to an even bigger nothing.

The no-thingness can manifest visually in two different ways, though of course it doesn’t have to manifest visually, especially if you are not a visual person. The most common way it manifests is as blackness or deep purple or dark blue—much like if you were peering into a room with no windows and no lights.

The best way to get a sense of the other visual way the seventh jhāna can manifest would be to remember how on an old TV if you turned to a channel with no station, you got black-and-white static. Some people see something somewhat like that in the seventh jhāna, only it’s black-and-black static.

Again you want to become skilled enough that you can enter this state and remain in it for 10 to 15 minutes before moving on. By passing entirely beyond the Sphere of No-Thingness, one reaches and remains in the Sphere of Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception. (DN 33.1.11.7) There is not much in the way of instructions or even description of the sphere of neither perception nor nonperception. “Perception” is a translation of the Pali word saññā. Saññā often refers to your capacity to label things, to identify them, to look them up in your database of objects and give them a name.

This state is hard to describe because it’s a state that has no characteristics that you can use to identify it, other than the fact that it’s a state that has no characteristics you can use to identify it. But there is good news. If you have a good, solid seventh jhāna—a good, solid nothing—let it collapse and come to rest in front of your face. Then see if your mind will go into a state that has no characteristics (and yet, you can stay in that state). It’s very hard to describe, but it is fairly easy to find if you have sufficient concentration.

However with the eighth jhāna, you might have time for one brief sentence—not containing the words I, me, or mine—before it completely disappears. It’s a very subtle state and disappears quite quickly if you lose your attention on it. This makes it far more fragile than any of the previous jhānas. If you do successfully learn to enter the realm of neither perception nor nonperception and then become distracted and find no trace of the jhāna to return to when you recognize the distraction, it will then be necessary to go back to the seventh or perhaps even to the fifth and work your way back to the eighth jhāna.

Although I stated earlier that you should “begin doing your insight practice from the highest jhāna you know,” the eighth jhāna is not all that well suited for doing an insight practice that requires thinking, for example contemplating the five daily remembrances or dependent origination. If you are going to be doing a contemplation for your insight practice and you have attained the eighth jhāna, it might be better to go backward to the seventh jhāna, stabilize it, and then begin your contemplation. But if you are going to be doing an insight practice that is more meditative, such as a body scan or noticing vedanā, the eighth jhāna is a suitable jumping off place.

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

It is also important to remember that the jhānas are not a big deal—they are a useful deal, but people should never laud or disparage themselves because they can or cannot enter a jhāna.

At times I have been accused of teaching “Jhāna Lite.” It’s certainly true that what I am teaching is “lite” compared to what is described in the Visuddhimagga, but as you’ll see in Part Two of this book, what is described in the Visuddhimagga doesn’t match what is described in the suttas. Certainly the experience of students first learning the jhānas on a ten-day meditation course is going to be lighter than what is possible on a longer retreat after they have developed skill in these states. And what students initially learn on a ten-day retreat is going to be “lite” compared to what is described in the suttas. But there are three very important advantages to learning these so-called lite jhānas:

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 use of “vitakka and vicāra” is just stressing that thinking is indeed happening in the first jhāna and totally goes away in the second jhāna.1

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 filled with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion. (DN 2.77; emphasis mine)

18. “Friend, what is the first jhāna?” “Here, friend, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by vitakka and vicarā, with pīti and sukha born of seclusion. This is called the first jhāna.”

In summary, what the sutta description of the first jhāna is saying is the following: Become secluded from the hindrances. Don’t worry if there is still some background thinking. Pīti and sukha will be generated via the pāmojja (worldly joy) that arises from being secluded from the hindrances. Focus on the pīti and sukha; sustaining them enables you to remain in the first jhāna. Spread the pīti and sukha throughout your body.

IN THE SUTTA DESCRIPTION of the jhānas, the point of demarcation between the first and second jhānas occurs when the vitakka and vicāra—the thinking—fully subsides. If you’ve been paying attention, you might feel this contradicts what I wrote earlier in the chapter on the second jhāna, where I seemed to indicate that the point of demarcation between the first and second jhānas occurs with the foreground-background shift between pīti and sukha. What’s going on here?

So why don’t I teach like I described above? Well, from a historical perspective, it’s because when I learned the jhānas, to move from the first jhāna to the second was to make the foreground-background shift. It was only much later that I realized exactly what the suttas were saying. Then I understood also that I was indeed actually experiencing the second jhāna as described in the suttas, but it was really only occurring some time after I made the foreground-background shift—it was only when I felt I was getting more strongly into the second jhāna that I was actually just arriving there. This realization dawned on me while I was on a long retreat, so I had lots of occasions to carefully observe what was happening and was able to identify exactly what was going on. But I found there really wasn’t a distinct “landmark” that marked the shift from the first to the second jhāna. The post-foreground-background shift part of the first jhāna gave way slowly to a more concentrated state, with the thinking slowly subsiding during that time.

So, yes, I am guilty of being more practical than precise. But since the practical instructions enable a student to achieve the precise results, I’m not going to worry about it.

THE PĪTI, which was so strong in the first jhāna and remained in the background of the second jhāna, now fades away completely. The disappearance of the pīti leaves you in a much calmer state—a state that is equanimous.

IN THE LATER Abhidhamma and commentaries, sukha and dukkha came to mean physical pleasure and pain while somanassa and domanassa came to mean mental joy and sorrow. But in the suttas, the meanings of these words are not so fixed.

However, the commentaries have completely missed the mark! The abandoning of the hindrances, the pericope above, and the jhāna descriptions are not three things in a linear progression. What actually is there is the abandoning of the hindrances, a summary of the whole arc of jhānic experience, and then a full detailed description of the jhānas. A similar pattern occurs earlier in the gradual training. Right after a householder goes forth, there is a summary of the sīla practices: “Having gone forth, one dwells restrained by the restraint of the rules, . . . with the sense-doors guarded, skilled in mindful awareness and content.”3 This is followed by a detailed description of the precepts, guarding the senses, mindful awareness, and contentment. The context there makes it very clear it is just a summary. Most likely this pericope is a late insertion into the gradual training: it’s certainly missing a context that makes it clear that it is a summary, it is redundant, it doesn’t occur in all recensions of the gradual training, and it seems to have been lifted from other suttas, particularly from the Saṃyutta Nikāya.

We can now construct the following table: abandoning the hindrances—access concentration gladness (pāmojja)—focusing on the pleasant sensation rapture (pīti)—first and second jhānas bodily tranquility (passaddhakāya)—second and third jhānas happiness (sukha)—third jhāna (the pīti is gone since passaddhakāya precedes this; therefore, third jhāna only) concentration (samādhi)—fourth jhāna

THE PALI WORD translated as “body” in the above description of insight practice is kāya and is clearly referring to the physical body since it is said to be rūpī and cātummahābhūtiko, meaning “having material form and composed of the four primary elements.” This is the same as the body (kāya) that one is to drench, steep, saturate, and suffuse.

In the suttas, there is a simile given for insight knowledge: “It is just as if there were a gem, a beryl, pure, excellent, well cut into eight facets, clear, bright, unflawed, perfect in every respect, strung on a blue, yellow, red, white or orange cord. A man with good eyesight, taking it in his hand and inspecting it, would describe it as such” (DN 2.86).

Clear beryl is very transparent, and it would be very easy to see the thread inside the gem. This seeing into is of course what we mean by insight. The concentrated, post-jhānic mind is well suited to examine the reality of body and mind and see into the deeper truths available when looking from a less egocentric perspective.

The Pali word rūpa means “materiality.” The choice of rūpa probably was made based on it being the semantic opposite of arūpa, which was already being used to refer to the immaterial states. These four rūpa jhānas are obviously not material; they are mental states. But there are valid reasons to refer to the four jhānas of the suttas as rūpa jhānas.

But the early sutta understanding is not that these states corresponded to any ontologically existent realms—the Buddha of the early suttas is portrayed as a phenomenologist, not a metaphysicist.

But had the Buddha felt that the experience of the realm of infinite space (ākāsānañcāyatana) was an experience of something that is ontologically existent, there would be no effort needed to confirm that the cosmos was infinite, and he could have immediately answered that the cosmos is indeed infinite.a His refusal to answer the question one way or the other would imply that he did not think he was experiencing an ontologically existent infinite space in the first of the immaterial states.

In the teachings of dependent origination, consciousness is said to be dependently arisen. In some suttas it is said to originate dependent on mind and body (nāma-rūpa);2 in others it arises dependent on fabrications (sankhara).3 This is not a contradiction; it’s simply that consciousness arises dependent on more than one thing—just like many things in the world.

There is even a sutta that strongly hints at the powers being solitary. In Anguttara-Nikāya 3.60, the Buddha is having a conversation with the brahmin Saṅgārava. After some discussion of these various kinds of powers, Saṅgārava says, “Only the one who performs this wonder experiences it and it occurs only to him.” This is totally congruent with these supernormal powers being a lucid dream. One can learn to enter such dreams via the mind-made body, which is known today as WILD.

It appears that after the parinibbāna of the Buddha, two factions arose in the saṅgha: one was made up of “dhamma specialists” who adopted a predominantly cognitive approach to the dhamma; the others were meditators, who practiced the four jhānas, the four immaterial states, and the psychic powers. The Cunda Sutta at AN 6.46 urges harmony between the factions, and there are other suttas that also seem to hint at this split.4 It seems the dhamma specialists favored the teaching on the five aggregates and were apparently practicing sīla and pañña while the meditators were practicing sīla, samādhi, and iddhi. Apparently harmony between the factions was restored, because we find both plenty of examples of suttas where people reach awakening via insight into the five aggregatese and plenty of examples where people (most frequently mentioned is the Buddha) reach awakening via practicing these last two psychic powers plus the ending of the āsavas.f This may account for the predominance in the Pali canon of practicing these three true knowledges over directing and inclining the jhānically concentrated mind to knowing and seeing.g

In the Kevaddha Sutta (DN 11.4 and 7), the Buddha says, referring to both the various supernormal powers and knowing the minds of others, “Seeing the danger of such miracles, I dislike, reject and despise them.” There is also a foolish monk named Sunakkhatta who left the monkhood because the Buddha didn’t perform any miracles,h which certainly casts doubt on all the accounts of miracles that are found in the suttas. So don’t waste your life messing around with any supernormal powers. The jhānas are for turbocharging your insight practice. Deep insights into the inconstant, ultimately unsatisfactory, empty nature of the universe are what will liberate you from dukkha.

THE LAST STEP GIVEN in the gradual training is the ending of the āsavas.a The Pali word āsava gets variously translated as “outflows,” “influxes,” “effluents,” “cankers,” “taints.” According to the Pali Text Society’s dictionary, āsava literally means “that which flows (out or on to) outflow & influx.” It is a word used by the Jains to indicate that which has to be stopped in order to escape the wheel of birth and death—basically, these influxes are the bad karma that has to be avoided. As he so often did, the Buddha took a popular word from a competing spiritual tradition and tweaked it to give it a new meaning. Given that new meaning and the etymological background of āsava, it is best translated as “intoxicant”—in-toxic-ant.

The standard formula for the four noble truths—existence, origin, cessation, path—is applied to both dukkha and the āsavas. There is also a simile: Suppose in a mountain glen there were a lake with clear water, limpid and unsullied. A man with keen sight, standing on the bank, would see oyster-shells, sand and pebbles, and shoals of fish moving about and keeping still. He would think to himself: “This is a lake with clear water limpid and unsullied, and there within it are oyster-shells, sand and pebbles, and shoals of fish moving about and keeping still.” (DN 2.100)

Again from the Pali-English Dictionary: “Freedom from the ‘Āsavas’ constitutes Arahantship,d & the fight for the extinction of these āsavas forms one of the main duties of [a human].” On becoming liberated from the āsavas, the gradual training says, “When [your mind] is liberated, the knowledge arises: ‘It is liberated.’ One understands: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further beyond this.’” The Buddha also called this liberation a visible fruit of the holy life and said, “There is no other fruit of [the holy life] higher or more sublime than this one.”4

The amygdala appears to be the brain structure that is at the very center of most of the brain events associated with fear. Just an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appeared to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. The study associated with this eight-week program found decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala.4 This finding, along with less activation in the amygdala during focused attention meditation mentioned above, would indicate that jhāna practice would be expected to have a long-term effect of reducing the automatic fear response.

The Buddha spoke of the jhānas as providing a “pleasant abiding here and now”6—in other words, since the four jhānas are primarily emotional states, they provide positive emotional abidings. Certainly from a subjective viewpoint, the first three jhānas are positive emotional states. In fact, unmistakable visual evidence provided by fMRI and EEG measurements show that all four jhānas involve increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex—even the subjectively neutral fourth jhāna shows increased left prefrontal cortex activity.7 Although using the jhānas to move your emotional set point to be more positive is a long-term project—probably involving thousands of hours, it certainly is a nice side effect for a warm-up exercise for gaining insights.

So besides the jhānas being a way to prepare your mind for insight practice, they can also have the following benefits as well: reduce effort necessary to sustain attentional focus, decrease emotionally reactive behaviors, reduce your automatic fear response, move your emotional set point in the positive direction,

provide pleasure more desirable than worldly pleasures, and hence provide an antidote to sensual craving, provide a pleasant abiding here and now.

Remember “concentration” is not the best translation of samādhi; much better is “indistractability.”

My usual answer to this is that if the jhānas were dangerous, I’d be dead by now. That said, jhāna practice is contraindicated for someone with an untreated tendency toward mania.

Dry insight practice is doable by almost anyone since it only requires momentary concentration (khaṇika-samādhi).

It’s quite a shame that the jhānas have become so neglected. Ayya Khema’s teacher, the Venerable Matara Sri Ñanarama Mahathera, after confirming that Ayya was indeed doing the jhānas correctly, added, “And furthermore you must teach them, they are in danger of becoming a lost art.”1

It certainly seems that they are not necessary for the first stage of awakening, called stream-entry. There