You may discover that the breath becomes very subtle; instead of a normal breath, you notice you are breathing very shallowly. It may even seem that you’ve stopped breathing altogether.

At first, what’s most likely to occur is that either your mind wanders away from the subtle pleasant sensation or the pleasant sensation itself goes away. If your mind wanders away, as soon as you notice this, return immediately to the pleasant sensation. But if this wandering away is happening repeatedly, it’s a sign of insufficient concentration;

If you do try out these instructions, do so without expectations! Expectations are the worst thing you can bring on any retreat, and they are especially hindering when trying to learn jhānas.

Another thing you can do in the first jhāna is play with the intensity level of the pīti. Once you’ve gotten to the point where you can stabilize it, see if you can decrease the level of intensity of the pīti and then bring it back up.

A pleasant mental sensation can certainly be used as the meditation object for generating pīti—but there are two major drawbacks: the pleasant mental sensation, which is most likely an emotion, is likely to have a story connected with it that then leads to distraction, or the pleasant mental sensation is unstable and soon fades away.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should never plan for the future or learn from the past. But it does mean when doing so, you need to know that is what you are intending to do.

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

Expectations are the absolute worst things you can bring on a retreat, and they are equally detrimental when practicing while not on retreat. Simply do the meditation method. And when access concentration arises, recognize it, sustain it “long enough,” and then shift your attention to a pleasant sensation. Don’t try to do the jhānas. You can’t.

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