Absorption (Jhana) with Snyder & Rasmussen

Meditation experts Stephen Snyder, Dr. Tina Rasmussen, PhD; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Jhanas advice

(Gregory Davies, May 31, 2018) This is a 45 minute discourse from Dr. Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder (jhanasadvice.com) when they visited London in the Spring of 2018.

"Meditative absorption" (jhana) practice is an ancient type of serenity concentration or mental unification (samatha) meditation that predates written history as a method of purifying the mind/heart.

It was taught to the ascetic Siddhartha by his teachers, and when people asked him what to practice after he became the Buddha, this practice is what he referenced in as many as 60-80% of the sutras throughout his life.

This practice is so important that it led him from a striving ascetic on a quest to enlightenment as the "Awakened One." And the absorptions were the Buddha's last act before he passed into final nirvana, running through the eight successive stages forward and back (DN 16, VI, 9).

Venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw

Rasmussen and Snyder were personally taught by the Burmese meditation master Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw, who authorized them as the first Western lay people to teach these calm concentration or samatha practices in his lineage.

• Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw is considered by many to be the leading Buddhist meditation master alive today, emphasizing both jhana and vipassana -- calm and insight -- just like the Buddha in so many texts. Wisdom Quarterly rates him as the greatest living scholar-practitioner of the Dharma.

Rasmussen and Snyder's book, Practicing the Jhanas, is an accessible and direct experiential account of samatha practice published by Shambhala.