The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

by Jack Kornfield

In the first insight jhana the mind becomes a silent witness to the experience of body and mind, which shows itself as almost mechanical, arising and passing, instant by instant. In the second deeper level of jhana, these momentary experiences reveal their patterns of conditioning, one being a cause of the next. In the third level, the body becomes more transparent and the fleeting selflessness of experience becomes more apparent. Over the next levels of insight we begin to experience luminosity, bliss, and then fear, followed by great joy as we dissolve into the mystical evanescence of all life. Inwardly it feels as if we move from sense organs to cells, to molecules, to atoms, to subatomic particles and waves. At each successive level of insight, equanimity grows, along with a profound inner freedom.