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

by Jack Kornfield

When concentration is strong enough, we slip below the waves of ordinary senses to a deep, silent realm of first jhana. Here consciousness is filled with stillness, rapture, happiness, and a steady awareness of the chosen subject. Initially we can rest in this stable state of jhana for some minutes. With practice we can sit drenched in joy for hours. As we continue to practice our concentration, the first of eight levels of jhana deepens to the second, and here the effort to focus becomes spontaneous and easy. Deepening yet further, in the third jhana, the coarse excitement of rapture disappears, leaving a steady current of unshakable happiness. By the fourth jhana, even the emotion of happiness fades, and an exquisite, unshakable stillness and equanimity arises. Beyond these, four more subtle jhana states follow: absorption in boundless space, absorption in boundless consciousness, and absorption in the silent realms beyond perception and non-perception.