Right Concentration

Remember in order to get to the first jhāna, you generate access concentration, and then after spending some time there, you find something pleasant and stay focused on that pleasure. Here you are to imagine something you can expand, starting out by expanding past the things in your vicinity, expand farther past all objects, and stay focused on the

People in India had been practicing mindfulness of breathing for many centuries by the time of the Buddha. They had been stumbling into deep, stable states of concentration for a very long time. Eventually these states were codified and arranged in order of increasing subtlety of object. By the fifth century b.c.e., these were well known and were b

When you’re in the fourth jhāna, you may find yourself slumped over. Your energy is a bit low, and you should probably bring it up a bit by sitting more upright. Then what you need to do is find something that you can expand without limit. What Ayya Khema taught was to get in touch with the boundaries of your being and expand them so you fill the w

You need both—the understanding and the experience. Understanding without any corresponding experience is useful, but not transformative. Experience without understanding is baffling.

Practicing the jhānas, with their focus on a series of increasingly subtle objects, quiets down the normal ego-making processes. When you emerge from the jhānas, the ego making does not immediately spring back full-blown—you have some period of time to investigate the world from a much less egocentric perspective.

above. It is really important if you want a high-quality experience of the fourth jhāna that you ignore your breathing.

If you find that you are frequently becoming distracted from the fourth jhāna experience or if the background thinking begins to kick in again, it’s a sure sign that your concentration level is not strong enough. The best remedy, and the only real long-term solution, is that the next time you are in access concentration, stay longer in access conce

When the fourth jhāna is done well, it is an incredibly restful state. We spend our days thinking and doing and our nights either dreaming or oblivious. Finally now you are in a state where you are fully conscious and almost nothing is happening.

As a practical matter, to enter the fourth jhāna, let go of the pleasure of the third jhāna, and hopefully when you do so, there will be a sense of things starting to physically drop down. Go with this sense of dropping down, and continue to let it drop.