Uposatha Jhana (Moon Zen) Ajahn Brahm

What is the blissful and inviting rapture of the light of absorption (jhana)? Is it santosha?

Can a Westerner achieve rapture and insight?

Full moon Sunday is the Uposatha (the fasting day of the lunar observance) when some choose to keep the Eight Precepts for one day and night. LA's Mindfulness Meditation Center in Covina (suburban San Gabriel Valley) is conducting its monthly Poya Day celebration in honor of it. This is an excellent time to relax, listen, and practice the path of absorption with the great Ajahn Brahm -- or to read Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties.

The Jhanas (Absorptions) – Seven Steps to Heaven (and One Beyond) by Ajahn Brahm

Nimitta (sign) emerges from obscuring clouds

(The Buddhist Society) Jhāna (meditative absorption, zen) is a bliss better than sex? Mantra: "Relax to the max!" There are two kinds of Buddhist meditation (no, not samatha and vipassana, which are a single system bifurcated by people who misunderstand what's needed for insight. The two types are Second Noble Truth (craving) meditation and Third Noble Truth (letting go) meditation, as explained by accomplished Western meditator Ajahn Brahm.

British Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (known to the world as Ajahn Brahm) was born Peter Betts in London, England (United Kingdom) on August 7, 1951.

Mindfulness, Bliss, Beyond: Meditator's Handbook

He came from a working-class background then won a scholarship to study theoretical physics at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. After graduating from Cambridge, he taught high school for a year before traveling to Northeast Thailand (Isan) to become a Theravada Buddhist monk.

He decided to train in the Thai Forest Tradition with the famous meditation master Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana Mahathera, who established Wat Pah Pong and Wat Pah Nanachat.

After his attainments in the forest -- and the "scandal" (along with Ajahn Sujato) of ordaining women in the Theravada tradition (Bhikkhuni Sangha), he moved to Serpentine, Perth, Western Australia (BSWA.org), to serve as abbot and advisor to a monastery (Bodhinyana Vihara) and nunnery with Western sensibilities open to students of meditation or monasticism or both.

• Ajahn's birthday: Bear Awareness: Taming Wild Mind

Ajahn Brahm Indonesia 2024 | Buddhist Society of Western Australia
Kindfulness: a new kind of meditation by Ajahn Brahm

• Ajahn Brahm at The Buddhist Society, Dec. 16, 2018; Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly