Instructions for Absorption (Leigh Brasington)

Leigh Brasington (leighb.com), Insight Journal, Fall 2002; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

These instructions have been taken from a nine-day retreat offered by Leigh Brasington [student of enlightened Western nun Ayya Khema] at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in April of 2002.

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Instruction for Entering Jhana by Leigh Brasington

The Pali word jhana (Sanskrit dhyana) is sometimes simply translated as "meditation," but more accurately it refers to an "absorption" into a very focused, very stable state of concentration.

In the classical tradition, there are several [eight] stages of jhana, each one more focused than the previous.

Some people will experience some of the jhanas on this retreat; some people will not. The likelihood of you experiencing a jhana is inversely proportional to the amount of desire that you have for it.

• [Reread this key line. The more desire you have, the less likely you are to experience absorption. Why? Desiring, wanting, longing for, craving jhana hurts the chances of it happening. So let go. Instead, just let it happen by persevering in practice without generating desire, however subtle and in the background.]

After all, the instructions given by the Buddha in the early texts (sutras) for practicing jhana begin with "Secluded [apart, separated] from sense desire, secluded from unwholesome [defiled] states of mind [like desire, aversion, wrong views], one approaches and abides in the first jhana."

In order to experience a jhana, it is necessary to temporarily abandon the Five Hindrances [sensual desire, ill-will, bodily sleepiness and mental lassitude, worry and flurry, skeptical doubt].

However, if you are craving a jhana, you've got sense desire [kama-tanha] and an unwholesome state of mind. You have to set those aside to be able to enter the jhana.

[The method]

Sariputta: Come, Kolita, let us leave the world.

The method for entering jhana begins with generating access concentration.

You begin by sitting in a comfortable, upright position. It needs to be comfortable, because if there is too much pain, aversion [manifesting as resistance, annoyance, or anger] will naturally develop in the mind.

You may be able to sit in a way that looks really good, but if your knees are killing you, there will be pain and you will not experience any jhanas.

So you need to find some way to sit that is comfortable. But it also needs to be upright and alert, because that tends to get your energy going in a beneficial way that keeps you awake.

If you are too comfortable, you will be overcome with sloth and torpor [sleepiness/laziness and low motivation/mental energy], which is an unwholesome state of mind that is totally useless for entering the jhanas.

[1] So the first prerequisite for entering the jhanas is to put the body in a position that you can just leave it in for the length of the sitting without having to move. If you have back problems or some other obstacle that prevents you from sitting upright, then you need to find some other alert position that you can maintain comfortably.

Now this is not to say that you cannot move. [You can move.] It may be that you have taken a position and you discover, "My knee is killing me; I have to move because there is too much aversion."

If you have to move, you have to move. Okay, be mindful of moving. The intention to move will be there before the movement.

• Notice that intention,
• then move very mindfully,
• and then re-settle yourself into the new position,
• and notice how long it takes for the mind to get back to that place of calm that it had before you moved.
• It is very important that you [move mindfully and do] not move unmindfully.

This process encourages you to find a position where you don't have to move, because you'll notice the amount of disturbance that even a slight movement generates.

And in order to get concentrated enough to have the jhanas manifest, you need a very calm mind.

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Generating access concentration can be done in a number of ways.

Today I will mostly talk about generating it using the breath, a practice known as anapana-sati.

The first word, anapana, means "in-breath and out-breath," while the word sati means "mindfulness."

The practice is therefore "mindfulness of breathing." When practicing anapana-sati, you put your attention on the breath.

It is probably better if you can observe the physical sensations of the breath at the nostrils or on the upper lip, rather than at the abdomen or elsewhere. It is better because it is more difficult to do; therefore, you have to concentrate more.

Since we are trying to generate access concentration, we take something that is do-able, though not terribly easy to do -- and then we do it. When watching the breath at the nose, you have to pay attention very carefully.

In doing so you will watch the sensations, and then your mind will wander off. [It doesn't have to, but it will...until it doesn't. When that is may be a million attempts from now or the very next breath.]

Then you'll bring it back, and it will wander off, then you'll bring it back [again], and it will wander off.

Eventually though -- maybe not in the next sitting, maybe not even in the next day -- but eventually [in its own time, not yours], you'll find that the mind sort of locks into the breath.

You've been going first to one side and then the other, and finally you're there, and you know that you're there. You're really with the breath, and the mind is not wandering off. Any thoughts that you have are wispy and in the background. The thoughts might be something like "Wow, I'm really with the breath now" as opposed to [discursive thoughts like], "When I get to Hawaii, the first thing I'm going to do is…"

When the thoughts are just slight, and they're not really pulling you away [so you are no longer distracted], you're with the sensations of the breath. This is the sign that you've gotten to access concentration.

Whatever method you use to generate access concentration, the sign that you've gotten to access concentration is that you are fully present with the object of meditation.

So if you are doing metta bhavana ["loving-kindness meditation"], you're just fully there with the feelings of metta; you're not getting distracted.

If you're doing the body sweeping practice [like on Goenka free 10-day retreats], you're fully there with the sensations in the body as you sweep your attention through the body.

You're not thinking extraneous thoughts, you're not planning, you're not worrying, you're not angry, you're not wanting something. You are just fully there with whatever the object is.

If your practice is anapana-sati, there are additional signs to indicate you have arrived at access concentration. You may discover that the breath becomes very subtle; instead of a normal breath, you notice you are breathing very shallow.

It may even seem that you've stopped breathing altogether. These are signs that you've arrived at access concentration. More: Instruction for Entering Jhana (leighb.com)