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How to do the jhanas

nadia.xyz

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Re: How to do the jhanas

#101

Post by rendx »

_nalply wrote: post #60

Please take care. There's the "dark night of the soul". Everybody is different. I and my wife experienced something similar to this phenomenon but my wife decades (!) earlier than me and she was completely alone. She had meditation therapy because of her cerebral palsy and when she fell into the night dark nobody understood her. I learnt a lot from her experience. Today I explain it like this: If you realize that eve…

Can recommend "Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing" by David A. Treleaven on this particular subject, especially for people working in that space.

Re: How to do the jhanas

#102

Post by rendx »

dnissley wrote: post #43
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #22

Oh spirituality. The only thing that I spent years of life trying to understand and ended up realizing that there's nothing to understand. It sounds corny and cliche but there's no other way I can put it. I have/had meditated for almost 5 years of my life for almost 2 hours a day(unless I am traveling/or sick etc), so I think I am experienced enough to help beginner meditators. Also being from a Sanskrit-derived-lang…

You see the issue though with the approach you're advocating? "Oh spoiler alert, you will actually feel like you are being more sadder after you started meditating.... enjoy the process" So I'll start to not enjoy myself by becoming sadder, but I just need to enjoy it?

> So I'll start to not enjoy myself by becoming sadder, but I just need to enjoy it?

Yes. I do enjoy sadness. Once you worked your way to enjoy it, it becomes cleansing in itself. It is not inherently unjoyful, it is that you are attributing lack of joy to it.

This is basically what "inner child work" is doing, or "demon feeding", to stay closer to buddhistic practices.

See also, for example, the "8 C's and 5 P's of Internal Family Systems", https://www.therapywithalessio.com/articles/self-in-ifs-ther... You can feel all of them (calm, curious, compassionate, connected, confident etc), AND anything else at the same time (sadness, overwhelm, fear, anger, etc).

Re: How to do the jhanas

#104

Post by roenxi »

dnissley wrote: post #49
roenxi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly it is a good time to reflect on the following puzzler: There are people you know who have achieved a jhana but don't talk about it. What are they saying?

Is the implication that those who aren't talking about it are a set of people for whom experiencing jhana was net neutral/negative for the people around them?

The implication is that people just don't spend much time talking about jhanas at all.

There are ~3,000 living billionaires. People talk about them continuously. Their actions are studied, their motives are studied, their contribution to society continuously assessed. The top few are household names.

There are countless living people who achieve jhanas. The topic comes up in conversation basically never. I know someone who I'd confidently say has gotten there. It hasn't yet inspired them to do anything new and they generally don't bring it up in conversation with people since it leads to a lot of woo and disagreement.

Re: How to do the jhanas

#105

Post by wayoverthecloud »

murftown wrote: post #98
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #22

Oh spirituality. The only thing that I spent years of life trying to understand and ended up realizing that there's nothing to understand. It sounds corny and cliche but there's no other way I can put it. I have/had meditated for almost 5 years of my life for almost 2 hours a day(unless I am traveling/or sick etc), so I think I am experienced enough to help beginner meditators. Also being from a Sanskrit-derived-lang…

I love your advice for beginners (last 3 paragraphs of your comment). It definitely rings true that the attainment of desirelessness can become a desire in itself, just another dragon to chase. I like your comment so much I was tempted to share it with my FB friends. Would you be ok with that? No worries if not. If so, would you like to be mentioned by your username? Sorry if this is not an appropriate thing to comme…

That's okay, you can share it :)

Re: How to do the jhanas

#106

Post by wayoverthecloud »

krackers wrote: post #63
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #22

Oh spirituality. The only thing that I spent years of life trying to understand and ended up realizing that there's nothing to understand. It sounds corny and cliche but there's no other way I can put it. I have/had meditated for almost 5 years of my life for almost 2 hours a day(unless I am traveling/or sick etc), so I think I am experienced enough to help beginner meditators. Also being from a Sanskrit-derived-lang…

UG Krishnamurti, is that you?

UG would have bashed the whole idea of meditation. Since I haven't had a calamity yet, I still don't brush aside meditation :)

Re: How to do the jhanas

#107

Post by axkdev »

__rito__ wrote: post #100
axkdev wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then, understanding Brahmā’s invitation, the Buddha Vipassī surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha, out of his compassion for sentient beings. And he saw sentient beings with little dust in their eyes, and some with much dust in their eyes; with keen faculties and with weak faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and hard to teach. And some of them lived seeing the danger in the fau…

Oh, this. I knew of this. I interpreted this as being in a better place due to entirely one's own background after their birth - i.e. upbringing, education, work, mindset, intelligence, etc. Where the tantric gurus say that some people are ahead of other people from their birth - in a very clear and unambiguous way. In a very "the force is strong with this one" vibe.

I see. I don't subscribe to Tantra, so can't comment on that. What I believe is that there is no magic and it just depends on the conditions. Those can be from your birth or before your birth. Like if you have a genetic mutation that inhibits brain developement, it will make it harder to grasp these concepts and / or meditate.

Re: How to do the jhanas

#108

Post by mping »

nataliste wrote: post #87
mping wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one. So it's actually very harmful to do these claims; each dhyana (or jhana) level correspo…

>Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one. To be fair, the Pali Canon is filled with episodes of followers spontaneously achievin…

Sure! But those were not ordinary people but special disciples, who had accumulated alot of blessings over a long time, thus were able to meet the Buddha and become enlightened with a couple of sentences from the Buddha. Still, the Buddha himself certified their enlightenment, they didn't go around claiming it themselves. Huge difference.

Re: How to do the jhanas

#109

Post by pas »

jackdawipper wrote: post #92
swayvil wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ancient meditation wizards of yore preferred to recruit those with "habitual one-pointed attention" (these days we call them aspergers etc). Because they are uncommonly good at concentration.

lol, aspergers et al, are the opposite to good at concentrating.

it's not that simple. (neither meditation nor Aspergers [high-functioning autism].)

there are at least a hundred[0] traditional techniques for meditation. one needs to find those that work. for someone with a highly monotropic autistic trait techniques that work with a singular focus are probably more well-suited, while someone with "kind of the opposite" (hello ADHD people) should try those that are more cognitively active, have mindfulness elements, and build rich imaginary worlds.

[0] 112 in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vij%C3%B1%C4%81na_Bhairava_Tan...

Re: How to do the jhanas

#110

Post by __rito__ »

axkdev wrote: post #107
__rito__ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, this. I knew of this. I interpreted this as being in a better place due to entirely one's own background after their birth - i.e. upbringing, education, work, mindset, intelligence, etc. Where the tantric gurus say that some people are ahead of other people from their birth - in a very clear and unambiguous way. In a very "the force is strong with this one" vibe.

I see. I don't subscribe to Tantra, so can't comment on that. What I believe is that there is no magic and it just depends on the conditions. Those can be from your birth or before your birth. Like if you have a genetic mutation that inhibits brain developement, it will make it harder to grasp these concepts and / or meditate.

Totally makes sense, and I understand your point-of-view.

I don't "subscribe" to tantra, either, but I felt curious and inquired into it.

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