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**exchpaypalgold** · 05-12-2011, 04:45 AM

I like Ajahn Chah's comments about jhana here in "Unshakeable Peace"....

The Dangers of Attachment

"Using the tools of practice entails hardship and arduous challenges. We rely on patience, endurance and going without. We have to do it ourselves, experience it for ourselves, realize it ourselves.

Scholars, however, tend to get confused a lot. For example, when they sit in meditation, as soon as their minds experience a teeny bit of tranquility they start to think, ''Hey, this must be first jhāna.'' This is how their minds work. And once those thoughts arise the tranquility they'd experienced is shattered.

Soon they start to think that it must have been the second jhâna they'd attained. Don't think and speculate about it. There aren't any billboards which announce which level of samādhi we're experiencing. The reality is completely different. There aren't any signs like the road signs that tell you, ''This way to Wat Nong Pah Pong.'' That's not how I read the mind. It doesn't announce.

Although a number of highly esteemed scholars have written descriptions of the first, second, third, and fourth jhāna, what's written is merely external information.

If the mind actually enters these states of profound peace, it doesn't know anything about those written descriptions. It knows, but what it knows isn't the same as the theory we study. If the scholars try to clutch their theory and drag it into their meditation, sitting and pondering, ''Hmmm...what could this be? Is this first jhāna yet?'' There! The peace is shattered, and they don't experience anything of real value.

And why is that? Because there is desire, and once there's craving what happens? The mind simultaneously withdraws out of the meditation. So it's necessary for all of us to relinquish thinking and speculation. Abandon them completely. Just take up the body, speech and mind and delve entirely into the practice.

Observe the workings of the mind, but don't lug the Dhamma books in there with you. Otherwise everything becomes a big mess, because nothing in those books corresponds precisely to the reality of the way things truly are. "

http://ajahnchah.org/book/Unshakeable_Peace1_2.php

05-12-2011, 04:45 AM	#20
exchpaypalgold Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 626 Senior Member	I like Ajahn Chah's comments about jhana here in "Unshakeable Peace".... The Dangers of Attachment "Using the tools of practice entails hardship and arduous challenges. We rely on patience, endurance and going without. We have to do it ourselves, experience it for ourselves, realize it ourselves. Scholars, however, tend to get confused a lot. For example, when they sit in meditation, as soon as their minds experience a teeny bit of tranquility they start to think, ''Hey, this must be first jhāna.'' This is how their minds work. And once those thoughts arise the tranquility they'd experienced is shattered. Soon they start to think that it must have been the second jhâna they'd attained. Don't think and speculate about it. There aren't any billboards which announce which level of samādhi we're experiencing. The reality is completely different. There aren't any signs like the road signs that tell you, ''This way to Wat Nong Pah Pong.'' That's not how I read the mind. It doesn't announce. Although a number of highly esteemed scholars have written descriptions of the first, second, third, and fourth jhāna, what's written is merely external information. If the mind actually enters these states of profound peace, it doesn't know anything about those written descriptions. It knows, but what it knows isn't the same as the theory we study. If the scholars try to clutch their theory and drag it into their meditation, sitting and pondering, ''Hmmm...what could this be? Is this first jhāna yet?'' There! The peace is shattered, and they don't experience anything of real value. And why is that? Because there is desire, and once there's craving what happens? The mind simultaneously withdraws out of the meditation. So it's necessary for all of us to relinquish thinking and speculation. Abandon them completely. Just take up the body, speech and mind and delve entirely into the practice. Observe the workings of the mind, but don't lug the Dhamma books in there with you. Otherwise everything becomes a big mess, because nothing in those books corresponds precisely to the reality of the way things truly are. " http://ajahnchah.org/book/Unshakeable_Peace1_2.php
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