Cultivate Skill in Jhana

Reference for First Pleasure Jhana.

“Secluded from the desire for sensory experience, secluded from unwholesome  qualities, a meditator enters and dwells within the first jhana, with applied and  sustained attention, blissful feelings in body & mind, and joyful happiness born of  seclusion.”   

“They permeate and pervade, saturate and fill their body with blissful feelings and  joyful happiness born of seclusion. Just as a skilled bath attendant or their apprentice would pour bath powder into a  brass basin and knead it together, again and again, so that their ball of bath powder  is saturated and permeated within and without.”   

"Similarly, a meditator permeates and pervades, saturates and fills their body with  blissful feelings and joyful happiness born of seclusion, so that there is no part of  their entire body that is unpervaded by blissful feeling & joyful happiness.”   

“And as they remain heedful, ardent, and resolute, memories and resolves related  to the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning, their mind gathers  and settles inwardly, grows unified and collected.” The Buddha Kaya-Gata Sati Sutta MN 119

Your meditation remains the same as Experiential Marker 12, except you now develop intimacy with the pleasantness of the piti sensation within your body until your awareness flows with & merges into it to enter the first jhana.

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• Meditation Length: 60 min twice daily. To give your mind time to absorb into piti and abide in the first pleasure jhana.
• Attention and Awareness: Allow your awareness and attention to unify in the foreground on the pleasurable experience of piti within your body and the joyful happiness of sukha to rest in the background, peripheral awareness.
• Progression: You are comfortable developing and abiding in the first pleasure jhana.

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Meditation Instructions.

Step 1: Develop access concentration on piti as in Marker 12.

• As you continue to increase your intimacy with the pleasurable sensation of the piti, allow awareness to experience it from within and do this until peripheral awareness enters into an autonomous flow with the pleasantness of the experience.
• Once awareness of the piti is unified and stable for some time, without any effort or distraction, free from all Meditative Hindrances, you are said to have developed access concentration (upacara samadhi).

New Addition:

Step 2: Awareness rests on pleasant feeling. 

• Incline your awareness toward a clear and stable feeling of pleasant piti sensation anywhere in your body. Rest your awareness in the middle of that pleasant piti sensation and soften the urge to control or help it. At first, nothing may happen. As you let go, its pleasantness will gradually increase in strength and clarity. 

Step 3: Absorb into pleasantness.

• Allow your mind's empathy to merge into the pleasantness of the piti sensation and take it in. Your mind, enjoying it, will produce more pleasant feelings to reflect its enjoyment. This will create the conditions for a pleasant-feeling feedback loop within your mind. Warning: Any attempt to help the piti grow will reengage your intellectual mind, and the pleasant-feeling feedback loop, conditioned by letting go, will collapse.

Step 4: Immersion: First Pleasure Jhana. 

• When the conditions are right, the wholesome-pleasant feeling of piti will gradually grow and flow through your mind and body, filling your awareness. When mature, your awareness will autonomously absorb and flow with this experience. When this occurs, your awareness has shifted the sensory world to the first pleasure jhana. 
• You may experience this shift as your awareness ‘sinks into’ the flow of the pleasantness of the piti or as the flow of pleasantness expanding outwards and surrounding your awareness. Regardless of how you experience the moment of absorption, it will be clear that it is an autonomous experience that is happening by itself, and that a definite shift in consciousness has occurred.

Step 5: Pervade your body and mind with piti. 

• Bring awareness to the pleasurable flow of piti through your body & mind and expand awareness to all parts of your body and mind, allowing the piti to pervade it. Allow awareness to become steady, firm, and unmoving in the pleasure of this seclusion.   

Step 1: Develop access concentration.

As in Meditation Skill 12, continue to increase your intimacy with the pleasurable sensation of the piti, allow awareness to experience it from within and do this until peripheral awareness enters into an autonomous flow with the pleasantness of the experience. Once awareness of the piti is unified and stable for some time, without any effort or distraction, free from all Meditative Hindrances, you are said to have developed access concentration (upacara samadhi).

Once Meditative Hindrances 01-12 are calmed and your mind is secluded from sensory stimulation, a pleasurable feeling of piti will be experienced as a pleasant tingling feeling within your body. This may arise around your face, chest or hands. It will be accompanied by sukha, as a joyful, happy, peaceful state of mind. Though both are present, during access concentration, piti sensation is dominant to sukha feeling. 

The piti may be a light tingling feeling pleasant feeling, or a flow of pleasure in your body. Take your time allowing attention to stabilise, and the pleasant sensation of piti to establish. When you begin learning to do this, it may take up to 15 minutes before the piti feeling stabilises, or maybe the next 15 meditation sessions.  

Regardless, time is not really the issue, enjoy your seclusion from the stimulation of the senses, your vacation from the drama of having to act, to do. It can be helpful to subtly relax your forehead and eyelids and make genuine smile with your eyes at this stage. The type that you would offer to someone you really care about, smiling with your heart, into the pleasant feeling. As the pleasant feeling grows, relax, and become sensitive to any desire to do, to achieve, to be or experience anything.

Step 2: Switch to the pleasurable feeling.

Once the pleasant feeling has become stable, as mentioned before this may arise around your face, chest or hands, gently bring your attention to the clearest point of piti sensation and rest it on it. Focus on its pleasantness, rather than the sensate quality itself, and allow your attention to become stable and firm. Allow your awareness to become immersed in the pleasantness of the experience, for it to fill your awareness.

Then: DON'T DO ANYTHING AT ALL.

I am sorry to shout, but this is the important part - no doing. At first nothing may happen to the pleasant feeling, maybe nothing will happen during the rest of your meditation session. And this doesn't matter. Any anticipation at this stage will cause the whole thing to collapse. Remember, anticipation of what may happen is one of five hindrances arising. Access concentration is unified, stable attention, free from the five hindrances, so if anticipation in regard to what may or may not happen arises, then it is already too late, access concentration has collapsed. As a tip, I find it useful to relax my eyelids, allowing them to droop like I am falling asleep. You can try this now, the very act of relaxing your eyelids calms all mind activity, calms the desire to do, achieve, have.

Step 3: Absorb into pleasantness.

It is the pleasantness of the sensation that the mind absorbs into. The mind has been wired through survival to have empathy, and it is this empathy that allows it to incline towards and absorb into pleasant feeling. You can see this happening when you observe a beautiful view, or the happiness that you feel observing a child enjoying them self. So, at this stage you just allow your mind to rest in and absorb the pleasantness of the sensations. 

At some stage, when the conditions are right, the pleasantness starts to enter the mind through this empathy. Taking in the pleasantness like you would take in a beautiful view. Simply let the pleasant feeling fill your mind. Your mind will take in pleasantness by itself, filling all parts of it. And since the mind also creates pleasant feeling when it is happy, it will start to produce more pleasant feeling in your body, to reflect its own happiness. This will start to create a feedback loop of pleasant feeling, between your body and mind. Because your body mirrors your state of mind, and your mind reacts to your body, the feeling of pleasantness feeding each, will start to grow in strength and clarity.

Watch out for anticipation & fear.

At this stage be careful that the last two of the meditative hindrances:

1. The anticipation of experiencing pleasure (H15).
2. The fear of letting go of control (H16).

Not that you are doing these hindrances, you aren't, they are simply reflex reactions that arise within the mind in relationship to pleasure, and control. These reactions of the mind, will 'bounce' your attention out of access concentration, bringing you back to square one again. If this happens it is important to remember that it is ok, it is part of the path of learning to let go of control. You simply need to be exposed to these to experiences again and again, before you lose interest in them. "Experienced this before, no big deal, not interested."

This is just the same as your first intimate date as a teenager, where you may have been over-excited about what is about to come, but now that you are older, and have been exposed to intimacy many times, the excitement has waned. In the same way through repeated exposure to the experience of piti-sukha, and to not being in control, you will see its grossness, and your interest will fade.

Step 4: When First Pleasure Jhana arises.

When the conditions are right, the wholesome-pleasant feeling of piti will gradually grow and flow through your mind and body, filling your awareness. When mature, your awareness will autonomously absorb and flow with this experience. When this occurs, your awareness has shifted the sensory world to the first pleasure jhana. You may experience this shift as your awareness ‘sinks into’ the flow of the pleasantness of the piti or as the flow of pleasantness expanding outwards and surrounding your awareness. Regardless of how you experience the moment of absorption, it will be clear that it is an autonomous experience that is happening by itself, and that a definite shift in consciousness has occurred. 

Once the pleasantness of piti has been absorbed into awareness, it will become your main experience. In the background to the bliss of piti, the content, joyful happiness of sukha, as your mind enjoys the piti will bring a smile to your face. This autonomous application may cause your attention to bounce out of the absorption and to take a habitual object like thinking, doubt or effort. When this occurs, it is a sign that the tranquility in your samadhi is not developed enough. You need to return to developing calm and contentment as part of your meditative attention so that access concentration, the experience of sukha as content, joyful happiness is stronger than the pleasurable experience of piti.

As the first pleasure jhana deepens, the applicational ‘bounce’ of vitakka will gradually calm, and the subtle restlessness of the piti will settle down. The experience of piti will gradually become more refined, stable, steady and unmoving, and the quality of sukha will shift from the background to the foreground of your awareness as the conditions for the second pleasure jhana develops.

Step 5: Pervade your body and mind with piti. 

• Bring awareness to the pleasurable flow of piti through your body & mind and expand awareness to all parts of your body and mind, allowing the piti to pervade it. Allow awareness to become steady, firm, and unmoving in the pleasure of this seclusion.  

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing.

Once you become skilled at developing access concentration in Marker 12: Access Concentration, you no longer need to establish Markers 07-09 in mindfulness of breathing. The purpose of Markers 07-09, is to stabilise your attention on breath sensation to withdraw your attention from sensory stimulation and mind wandering. When you sit for meditation you can now transition from the whole length of each breath to the experience of your whole body breathing.

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                       Meditation Markers.

                                                               01: Body Relaxation.

                                                               02: Mind Relaxation.

                                                               03: Mindful Presence.

                                                               04: Joyful Presence.

                                                               05: Natural Breathing.

                                                               06: Length of Each Breath.

***                Markers 07-09: no longer needed.                 ***

                                                               10: Whole-Body Breathing.

                                                               11: Sustained Awareness.

                                                               12: Access Concentration.

13: Unstable Unification.        →      13: First Pleasure Jhana.

14: Enchantment with Piti.                14: Second Pleasure Jhana.

15: Enchantment with Sukha            15: Third Pleasure Jhana.

16: Enchantment with Happiness    16: Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

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Progression Map for the First Pleasure Jhana. 

As with the development of access concentration, jhana is a process of shedding/dropping away by training your mind to let go of different aspects of experience and experiencing. 

Access concentration is also developed by observing, calming and abandoning:

1. Anticipation: Looking forward to pleasurable experiences.
2. Fear: Fear of giving up all control. 
3. Desire for sensory pleasure: regarding the six sense fields.
4. Vitakka: Effortless application of attention.

Factors of the First Pleasure Jhana.

• Vitakka/vicara: The habitual application of attention (vitakka) has been calmed but is still present in first pleasure jhana. This allows background sound and some thoughts about the meditation experience to arise. Attention is autonomously sustained (vicara) on the blissful flow of pleasant sensations within your body and mind (piti).
• Samadhi: Unification is unstable due to the continued activity of vitakka.
• Seclusion: Withdrawn from the six sense fields senses but not yet entirely secluded from them.
• Suppression: All meditative hindrances are now suppressed.
• Thinking: Because vitakka is still present, thoughts about the meditation may still arise.
• Piti/sukha: Blissful experience in body & mind (piti) + a joyful-happiness in mind & heart (sukha).
• Sati: Mindfulness still has gaps due to the application of vitakka.
• Equanimity: Equanimity (Upekkha) is absent.

For some meditators, this may become very intense and uncomfortable, as the increase of the flow of piti (as energy) through the body and mind, becomes too strong. With intense energy flows through the spine, body and mind, it can be uncomfortable. I have always had a highly energic mind, while I get physically tired, my mind is usually energic and interested in things. 

When I first experienced this piti back-feeding loop, it was very intense like someone turning a garden hose on full, making my mind and body shake. If piti is too strong, it can sometimes even bounce you out of access concentration, due to the intensity and excitement. The main cause of this is that the Enlightenment Factors of Meditative Joy and Tranquility were not stable enough for jhana.

Meditative Joy & Tranquility

It is important to note that jhana can be accessed through efforting the stability of attention on your meditation object thereby temporarily blocking out both sensoury input and the meditative hindrances. This will produce unification and strong piti-sukha because of seclusion. However, it is not samma-samadhi (right unification) because samadhi was not accessed by and does not contain the Enlightenment Factors of Meditative Joy & Tranquility.

• Meditative Joy is cultivated by tuning into the subtle pleasure of letting go, abandoning, releasing therefore it has both an energising and calming effect.
• Tranquility arises as a natural expression of letting go, abandoning, releasing therefore it has a calming effect on the flow of piti in the body on unification.

If you find piti is too strong

If you find that when your mind turns towards First Jhana that piti is too strong, there are a couple of techniques that are helpful for calming it.

1. Learn how to develop access concentration through letting go rather than by 'doing the meditation during mindfulness of breathing. Follow instructions in TIER 2 to develop skill in cultivating both meditative joy & tranquility.
2. Once you have reached access concentration it can also be helpful when piti-sukha first arises, to bring sukha - the mental joy and happiness, to the foreground of your awareness, and allow piti to stay in background peripheral awareness. This is done in the same way that you may allow the sound of loud music, fade into the background of your attention so it doesn't disturb you. 

This attention shift will withdraw some of the energetic quality from the piti. With regular exposure to piti the excitement that arises will gradually subside, in conjunction with you losing interest in it, and the flowing body sensations will settle down into a pleasurable experience. 

You are ready to progress to the Meditation Skill 14: Second Pleasure Jhana when you:

• The experience of piti in the First Pleasure Jhana gradually becomes more refined, stable, steady and unmoving, and the quality of sukha as joyful-happiness shifts from the background to the foreground of your awareness as the conditions for the Second Pleasure Jhana develops.

Tip: Once you have reached access concentration, learn to bring the joyful happiness of sukha to the foreground of your awareness and relax your interest in the pleasant feeling of piti so that it rests in the background peripheral awareness. This is done in the same way that you allow loud music at a party to fade into the background of your awareness so that it doesn't disturb your conversation with someone you really like. This shifting of experiences from the foreground to background awareness withdraws some of the energetic quality from the piti for the focus of the mind, replacing it with the subtler experiences of tranquility and sukha.

Reference for Second Pleasure Jhana.

“Furthermore, with the calming of applied & sustained attention, the meditator  enters & dwells within the second jhana, with inner calming & unification of mind,  free from thinking & reflection, and filled with blissful feelings in body & mind  and joyful happiness born of unification.”   

“They permeate & pervade, saturate & fill their body with blissful feelings and  joyful happiness born of unification.”   “Just like a lake that has a cool spring bubbling up from within, with no water  flowing in from the east, west, north, or south, and it would not be resupplied time  to time with showers of rain, so that the cool spring within the lake would  permeate & pervade, saturate & fill it so that no part of the lake was unpervaded  by its cool waters.”  

“Similarly, a meditator permeates & pervades, saturates & fills their body with  blissful feelings and joyful happiness born of unification, so that there is no part of  their entire body that is unpervaded by blissful feelings & joyful happiness.”   

“As they remain heedful, ardent, and resolute, memories and resolves related to the  household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning, their mind gathers and  settles inwardly, growing unified and collected.”  The Buddha Kaya-Gata Sati Sutta MN 119

Your meditation remains the same as Meditation Skill 13, except you now calm the experience of piti, and develop intimacy with the joyful happiness of sukha within your mind & heart until your awareness flows with & absorbs into it to enter the second jhana.

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• Meditation Length: 60 min twice daily. To give your mind time to absorb into sukha and abide in the second pleasure jhana.
• Attention and Awareness: Allow your awareness and attention to unify in the foreground on the pleasurable experience of the joyful happiness of sukha and the subtle experience of piti to rest in the background, peripheral awareness.
• Progression: You are comfortable developing and abiding in the second pleasure jhana.

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Meditation Instructions.

Step 1: Spend more time deepening  Meditative Joy & Tranquility: 

• To create the conditions for the Second Pleasure Jhana, develop a deeper experience of joyful presence and tranquility by taking time on each Experiential Marker during mindfulness of breathing. At access concentration, calm the application of your attention by allowing samadhi to become firmer and effortless before accessing the first jhana.

 Step 2: Develop access concentration on piti as in Marker 12.

• As you continue to increase your intimacy with the pleasurable sensation of the piti, allow awareness to experience it from within and do this until peripheral awareness enters into an autonomous flow with the pleasantness of the experience.
• Once awareness of the piti is unified and stable for some time, without any effort or distraction, free from all Meditative Hindrances, you are said to have developed access concentration (upacara samadhi).

Step 3:  Absorb into piti for First Pleasure Jhana. 

• Develop the first jhana, as you did in Marker 13, by inclining your awareness toward a clear, pleasant feeling of piti in your body. When the conditions are right, the wholesome-pleasant feeling of piti will gradually grow and flow through your mind and body, filling your awareness. 
• When mature, your awareness will autonomously absorb and flow with this experience. When this occurs, your awareness has shifted the sensory world to the first pleasure jhana. You may experience this shift as your awareness ‘sinks into’ the flow of the pleasantness of the piti or as the flow of pleasantness expanding outwards and surrounding your awareness.

Step 4: Incline toward the joyful-happiness of sukha for Second Pleasure Jhana. 

• The key to move from first to second jhana, is to shift your interest from pleasurable sensation to the feeling of joy and happiness in your mind (sukha). You do this, by noticing the feeling of sukha present, and shifting the feeling of piti into your peripheral awareness, and the feeling of sukha to the foreground of your attention. 
• Soften your interest in the piti to allow the experience to calm and rest in the background. Bring the sukha to the foreground by becoming more aware of the joyfulness of your mind and the happiness in your heart (sukha).

Step 5: Absorb into sukha for Second Pleasure Jhana. 

• Once sukha is the foreground experience in your awareness, allow it to rest there. Gradually, the piti feeling will fade into the background due to inattention, and sukha (joyful-happiness) will become the dominant experience due to attention. 
• Piti will now be experienced as subtle pleasant sensations in the background, while there will be an increasing stability in the experience of joy and happiness, in the forefront of you mind. 
• To aid in this shift, calm vitakka by intentionally abandoning all effort. You will know you have entered the second sukha-vedana jhana, when the restlessness due to vitakka is absent, and attention is firm, steady, unmoving on sukha, free from any possibility of thought or doing.
• As your experience of sukha moves to the foreground, gently rest your awareness in this experience and allow it to flow within your awareness. Your awareness will gradually absorb the joyful feeling, and a flow of happiness from your heart will arise to enter the second jhana.

Step 6: Pervade your body and mind with sukha. 

• Bring awareness to your heart's centre and allow joy and happiness to flow. Expand awareness to all parts of your body and mind, allowing the sukha to pervade it. Allow awareness to become steady, firm, and unmoving in samadhi.  

Shifting between first & second jhana.

It is helpful to learn to move between the first and second jhana. To move back to First Pleasure Jhana, shift your attention back to the background piti and rest attention on it, until the piti grows, and takes the whole of your attention. You can then practice moving to the second jhana, in the same way as earlier, by shifting attention to the background experience of sukha. 

You will notice a very distinct difference between these pleasure jhana by practising these transitions, in particular the obvious grossness of the first to the second, in terms of energy and seclusion. Like moving from the sounds of nature to a rock concert and back again, the first jhana will appear energetic, compared to the subtlety of the second. Start to experiment with this shift between foreground and background until you can make the piti less intense simply by calming the doing of vitakka. 

In this way, you will learn to differentiate the two pleasure jhana and sustain attention within the second jhana for longer periods. Once you can sustain attention in the second pleasure jhana, learn to spread that feeling of joy and happiness until it fills your whole body, like draped in a clean light or cloth.

Sotapanna (Stream Entry) is the first of four mature insights leading to the experience of Nibbana that permanently uproots specific fetters (that which binds) from the mind. These fetters are the direct conditions for all Meditative Hindrances to arise. With Stream Entry, two fetters are removed & one hindrance is uprooted from the mind, two skillful perceptions of reality are developed, and one wholesome quality is established. 

Creating the Conditions for Stream Entry from the Second Pleasure Jhana.

You can begin to create the conditions for Stream Entry from the Second Pleasure Jhana. This is done by being curious about the fading of the jhana factors and rearising of the engagement of your mind with your six sense fields as your mind emerges from jhana and you enter your day. This can be enhanced by precise investigations into anatta (autonomous nature) and idappaccayatā: Specific Conditionality included in Cultivation 06 on Sotapanna: Stream Entry. 

Step 1:  + Mindfulness, meditative joy, balanced effort, tranquility, & unification. 

• Your first step is to develop your skill in accessing and abiding in the Second Pleasure Jhana. Learn to clearly define the factors that make up that particular jhana. A list can be found in the Progression Map below. When emerging from the Second Pleasure Jhana your mind will have the above Awakening Factors. Curiosity was abandoned with vitakka, and complete equanimity has not yet been developed.

Step 2: + Curiosity.

• When your mind emerges from the Second Pleasure Jhana, you will need to arouse the Awakening Factor of curiosity. This is done by taking an interest in and observing the rearising of the interaction between your mind with the six sensory fields. Your curiosity should be toward the anicca (impermanent) and anatta (autonomous) nature of the jhana factors and the awareness of the six sense fields.

Step 3: Loosen up your attention.

• Start to loosen up your attention's unification so that it can swap to khanika samadhi (momentary unification) for vipassana-insight. Observing the anatta nature of your attention as it swaps from samatha- based unified attention to vipassana-based momentary unification for insight into the Five Aggregates. Re-establishing a background peripheral awareness of your body as Joyful Presence (Skill 04) creates a foundation from which you can develop deep insight into anatta and specific conditionality.

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                       Meditation Markers.

                                                               01: Body Relaxation.

                                                               02: Mind Relaxation.

                                                               03: Mindful Presence.

                                                               04: Joyful Presence.

                                                               05: Natural Breathing.

                                                               06: Length of Each Breath.

***                Markers 07-09: no longer needed.                 ***

                                                               10: Whole-Body Breathing.

                                                               11: Sustained Awareness.

                                                               12: Access Concentration.

                                                               13: First Pleasure Jhana.

14: Enchantment with Piti.      →     14: Second Pleasure Jhana.

15: Enchantment with Sukha            15: Third Pleasure Jhana.

16: Enchantment with Happiness    16: Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

17: Enchantment with Self.                17: Sotapanna: Stream Entry.

18: Enchantment with Habit.             18: Sakadagami: Once Returner.

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Progression Map for the Second Pleasure Jhana. 

A GRADUAL DROPPING AWAY OF ALL DOING 

Whereas first pleasure jhana is defined by a gradual dropping away of all activity, second pleasure jhana is defined by a gradual dropping away of all doing.

From First to Second Pleasure Jhana.

• By abandoning: vitakka, subtle thinking, plus calming of piti.

Factors of the Second Pleasure Jhana.

• Vitakka/vicara: applied attention absent, attention sustained.
• Unification: complete stability through unification of attention.
• Seclusion: complete.
• Suppression: absence of the five hindrances.
• Thinking: steadiness, firmness, thoughts cannot arise.
• Piti/sukha: calming of pleasant physical sensations (piti), and sustained attention resting on mental pleasure (sukha).
• Sati: mindfulness becoming steady.
• Upekkha: equanimity absent.

You are ready to progress to Meditation Skill 15: Third Pleasure Jhana when:

• The experience of Joyfulness in the Second Pleasure Jhana gradually becomes more refined, stable, steady and unmoving, and the quality of content-happiness shifts from the background to the foreground of your awareness as the conditions for the Third Pleasure Jhana develops.

Reference for Third Pleasure Jhana.

“Furthermore, with the fading of blissful feelings in body & mind, the meditator  dwells equanimous, mindful & clearly comprehending, experiencing happiness in  their body. In this way, they enter & dwell in the third jhana, of which Noble Ones  say: One who is equanimous & mindful has a pleasant abiding.”  

“They permeate and pervade, saturate and fill their body with happiness free from  blissful feelings.”  “Just as lotuses growing in a pond may stay immersed in the water without breaking  the surface and still flourish, they are permeated and pervaded, saturated and filled  with cool water from their roots to their tips so that no part of them is unpervaded  by it.”  

“In this way, a meditator permeates and pervades, saturates and fills their body with  happiness free from blissful feelings, so that no part of their body is unpervaded by  this happiness.”  

“And as they remain heedful, ardent, and resolute, memories and resolves related to  the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning, their mind gathers and  settles inwardly, grows unified and collected.” The Buddha Kaya-Gata Sati Sutta MN 119

Your meditation remains the same as Meditation Skill 14, except you now calm the bubbly happiness of heart in the Second Pleasure Jhana and rest awareness on the subtle feeling of happy-contentment in your heart's centre and lose interest in the uplifting feeling of joyfulness of mind until your awareness flows with and absorbs into the feeling of happy-contentment to enter the Third Pleasure Jhana.

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• Meditation Length: 60 min+ twice daily + developing continuity of contentment in daily life. This stage requires a simplification of your life, adherence to sila (morality) and inclining your mind toward that which is kusala (wholesome/skillful). These can be accelerated in a retreat environment.
• Attention and Awareness: Allow your awareness and attention to unify in the foreground in the subtle experience of happy-contentment in your heart's centre and the uplifting experience of joyfulness of mind to fade in the background, peripheral awareness.
• Progression: You are comfortable developing and abiding in the Third Pleasure Jhana.

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Meditation Instructions.

Step 1: Spend more time deepening Contentment & Access Concentration.

• The Third Pleasure jhana is characterised by very still, unmoving awareness due to complete absorption into the heart-felt feeling of happy-contentment. To create the conditions for the Third Pleasure Jhana, spend more time developing contentment during meditation and daily life.  
• When establishing access concentration, spend more time resting in it and don't rush to enter the First Pleasure Jhana. Allow access concentration to deepen until your samadhi becomes very firm and unmoving, and the experience of sukha as an uplift, joyful happiness comes to the forefront of your awareness. When you access the First Pleasure Jhana, the experience of piti will be subtler and your mind will skip through it to rest in the Second Pleasure Jhana.

Step 2: Develop the First Pleasure Jhana. 

• Develop the First Pleasure Jhana, as you did in Marker 13, by inclining your awareness toward a clear, pleasant feeling of piti in your body. When the conditions are right, the wholesome-pleasant feeling of piti will gradually grow and flow through your mind and body, filling your awareness. 
• When mature, your awareness will autonomously absorb and flow with this experience. When this occurs, your awareness has shifted the sensory world to the first pleasure jhana.

Step 3: Develop the Second Pleasure Jhana. 

• Develop the Second Pleasure Jhana, as you did in Marker 14, by inclining your awareness toward a clear, pleasant feeling of sukha in your heart & mind. Once sukha is the foreground experience in your awareness, allow it to rest there. The piti feeling will gradually fade into the background due to inattention, and sukha (joyful-happiness) will become the dominant experience due to attention. 
• As your experience of sukha moves to the foreground, gently rest your awareness in this experience and allow it to flow within your awareness. Your awareness will gradually absorb the joyful feeling, and a flow of happiness from your heart will arise to enter the second jhana.

Step 4: Learn to separate sukha into Joyfulness & happiness.

• As piti completely fades in the Second Pleasure Jhana, you will notice that sukha comprises two parts: an uplifting joyfulness of mind and happiness flowing from the heart. Once this becomes clear, you can separate these two by seeing the grossness in joyfulness of mind and inclining your awareness toward the subtler pleasure of happy-contentment within your heart's centre. 

Step 5: Rest awareness on the content-happiness, bringing it to the foreground.

• As joyfulness of mind moves to the background of your awareness and happy-contentment to the foreground, the remaining background piti will completely fade away. Gently rest your awareness on the pleasure of happy-contentment will fill your foreground experience and allow your awareness to flow with and absorb into this experience. 

Step 6: Allow your mind to absorb into the Third Pleasure Jhana.

• As your awareness absorbs into the experience of happy-contentment, your background peripheral awareness containing the subtle experience of joyfulness will fade. At this stage the last remaining effort of vitakka and vicara will cease (applied & sustained attention), and you will experience a complete absorption of awareness into the subtle, deeply calm, happy-contentment of heart that is free from any sense of movement. Due to the absence of vitakka and vicara there is no external sensory experience and no intellectual processes of your mind (including no possibility of thinking).
• The experience of the Third Pleasure Jhana is vast stillness, deeply serene, tranquil, peaceful, content and deeply satisfied, with an extremely clear clarity of mindful comprehension of these qualities.

A metaphor for this experience.

The energetic nature of joyfulness can be understood by observing the excitement of a child at Christmas. Both happiness of heart and the restless excitement of mind are happening simultaneously in the child. Though subtler than the blissful experience of piti, joyfulness of mind still contains some restlessness that needs to be removed to move to the experience of seclusion. 

Step 6: Pervade your body and mind with happy-contentment. 

• Bring awareness to your heart's centre and allow the feeling of happy-contentment to flow. Expand awareness to all parts of your body and mind, allowing the pleasure of happy-contentment to pervade them until they become steady, firm, and unmoving in samadhi. 
• When this subtle pleasure of happy-contentment is experienced, your mind will become unmoving, still and tranquil. Equanimity towards sukha-vedana and dukkha-vedana (pleasant feeling / unpleasant feeling) will start to arise within your mind.

Sotapanna (Stream Entry) is the first of four mature insights leading to the experience of Nibbana that permanently uproots specific fetters (that which binds) from the mind. These fetters are the direct conditions for all Meditative Hindrances to arise. With Stream Entry, two fetters are removed & one hindrance is uprooted from the mind, two skillful perceptions of reality are developed, and one wholesome quality is established. 

Creating the Conditions for Stream Entry from the Third Pleasure Jhana.

You can begin to create the conditions for Stream Entry from the Third Pleasure Jhana. This is done by being curious about the fading of the jhana factors and rearising of the engagement of your mind with your six sense fields as your mind emerges from jhana and you enter your day. This can be enhanced by precise investigations into anatta (autonomous nature) and idappaccayatā: Specific Conditionality included in Cultivation 06 on Sotapanna: Stream Entry. 

Step 1:  + Mindfulness, balanced effort, tranquility, unification, & immature equanimity. 

• Your first step is to develop your skill in accessing and abiding in the Third Pleasure Jhana. Learn to clearly define the factors that make up that particular jhana. A list can be found in the Progression Map below. When emerging from the  Fourth Pleasure Jhana, your mind will have the above Awakening Factors. Curiosity and Meditative Joy were abandoned in earlier jhana and will need to be re-established.

Step 2: + Curiosity.

• When your mind emerges from the Third Pleasure Jhana, you will need to arouse the Awakening Factor of curiosity. This is done by taking an interest in and observing the rearising of the interaction between your mind with the six sensory fields. Your curiosity should be toward the anicca (impermanent) and anatta (autonomous) nature of the jhana factors and the awareness of the six sense fields.

Step 3: + Meditative Joy.

• When your mind emerges from the Third Pleasure Jhana, you will need to arouse the Awakening Factor of meditative joy. Arouse within your mind a pleasurable interest in this investigation of the rearising of the interaction between your mind with the six sensory fields. This can be done by enjoying curiosity and appreciating the seclusion of mind that still remains. Gently smiling into it with your eyes will enhance the uplifting experience of joyfulness in your mind.

Step 4: Loosen up your attention.

• Start to loosen up your attention's unification so that it can swap to khanika samadhi (momentary unification) for vipassana-insight. Observing the anatta nature of your attention as it swaps from samatha- based unified attention to vipassana based momentary unification for insight into the Five Aggregates. Re-establishing a background peripheral awareness of your body as Joyful Presence (Skill 04) creates a foundation from which you can develop deep insight into anatta and specific conditionality.

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                       Meditation Markers.

                                                               01: Body Relaxation.

                                                               02: Mind Relaxation.

                                                               03: Mindful Presence.

                                                               04: Joyful Presence.

                                                               05: Natural Breathing.

                                                               06: Length of Each Breath.

***                Markers 07-09: no longer needed.                 ***

                                                               10: Whole-Body Breathing.

                                                               11: Sustained Awareness.

                                                               12: Access Concentration.

                                                               13: First Pleasure Jhana.

                                                               14: Second Pleasure Jhana.

15: Enchantment with Sukha   →    15: Third Pleasure Jhana.

16: Enchantment with Happiness    16: Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

17: Enchantment with Self.               17: Sotapanna: Stream Entry.

18: Enchantment with Habit.             18: Sakadagami: Once Returner.

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Progression Map for the Third Pleasure Jhana. 

AN ABSENCE OF ALL MOVEMENT

Whereas the Second Pleasure Jhana is defined by a gradual dropping away of all doing, the Third Pleasure Jhana is defined by an absence of movement and unmoving happy-contentment of the heart.

From Second to Third Pleasure Jhana.

• By abandoning: vicara, piti, joy.

Factors of the Third Pleasure Jhana.

• Vitakka/vicara: absent.
• Unification: complete.
• Seclusion: complete.
• Suppression: complete.
• Thinking: absent.
• Piti/sukha: piti is absent, pleasure (sukha) fills body awareness.
• Sati: mindfulness is stable.
• Upekkha: equanimity is arising.

You are ready to progress to the Meditation Skill 16: Fourth Pleasure Jhana when:

• The experience of happiness and pleasantness in the Third Pleasure Jhana gradually becomes more refined and subtle, and the quality of contentment fills the foreground of your awareness, transforming into equanimity as the conditions for the Fourth Pleasure Jhana develop.

Reference for the Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

"Furthermore, with the abandoning of sukha & dukkha, as with the previous  passing away of happiness & unhappiness, a meditator enters & dwells in the  fourth jhana, which is neither pleasant nor unpleasant and contains mindfulness  purified by equanimity.”   

“They sit, pervading their body with pure, bright awareness.”  “The same as if a man was sitting covered from head to foot with a white cloth so  that no part of his body was untouched by this white cloth, a meditator sits,  pervading their body with pure, bright awareness so that no part of their body is  unpervaded by pure, bright awareness.”  

“And as they remain heedful, ardent, and resolute, memories and resolves related to  the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning, their mind gathers and  settles inwardly, grows unified and collected.” The Buddha Kaya-Gata Sati Sutta MN 119

Your meditation remains the same as Meditation Skill 15, except you now calm your minds interest in the pleasure of happy-contentment of the Third Pleasure Jhana and allow your awareness to rest in a neutral contentment, free from happiness, free pleasant or unpleasant feeling, until your awareness flows with and absorbs into an extremely quiet, serene stillness, with clear onlooking mindfulness and unmoving equanimity to enter the Fourth Pleasure Jhana.  

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• Meditation Length: 60 min+ twice daily + developing continuity of equanimity in daily life. This stage requires a simplification of your life, adherence to sila (morality) and inclining your mind toward that which is kusala (wholesome/skillful). These can be accelerated in a retreat environment.
• Attention and Awareness: Allow your awareness and attention to unify in the foreground in neutral contentment, free from happiness, free pleasant or unpleasant feeling, allowing happiness and pleasure to fade into the background, peripheral awareness.
• Progression: You are comfortable developing and abiding in the Fourth Pleasure Jhana and have created the conditions for and accessed Sotapanna Insight: Stream Entry.

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Meditation Instructions.

Step 1: Simplify your life, refine morality and incline your mind toward the kusala.

• The Fourth Pleasure Jhana is a tranquil, serene stillness characterised by clear, on-looking mindfulness and unmoving equanimity. To create the conditions for it, you must simplify your life, adhere to Sila (morality), and incline your mind toward that which is kusala (wholesome/skillful). 
• Inclining your mind away from pleasant and unpleasant feelings in daily life and toward the kusala: wholesome/skilful states, is essential for creating the conditions for the Fourth Pleasure Jhana. Within your daily life, soften your interest and allow things to be as they are. Train by softening/relaxing your interest in experiencing things. Encourage disenchantment by gently softening the underlying effort of your mind to feel attracted, adverse or ignore experiences. 

Step 2: Spend more time deepening Access Concentration. 

• The Fourth Pleasure Jhana requires a deeper and more unified samadhi than the Third Pleasure Jhana. To prepare your mind for the Fourth Pleasure Jhana, develop skills in accessing and dwelling in access concentration for extended periods so that the samadhi in access concentration has time to deepen. 
• A sign that access concentration has deepened is an absence of the five physical senses, and the scope of awareness becomes bright. The experience is like sitting in a dark room, and someone opens the curtains, with the sunlight shining through your eyelids. Your mind will become very still and bright as samadhi matures and your mind is free from hindrances and sensory stimulation. Using your meditation time to learn to access concentration faster and abiding in it for 1 hour + will develop the amount of samadhi needed to make accessing the Fourth Pleasure Jhana easier.

Step 3: In access concentration, refine piti-sukha to a feeling of happy-contentment. 

• While in access concentration, refine piti-sukha into a feeling of happy-contentment of heart. As your samadhi becomes very firm and unmoving in access concentration, you will experience waves of piti-sukha (pleasant, blissful sensation and joyful-happiness). Practice inclining your mind away from the pleasant, blissful sensation of piti and toward the joyfulness of mind and happiness of heart, sukha. You allow piti to fade into the background and sukha into the foreground of awareness.

Step 3: Create a subtle pleasant feeling for the First Pleasure Jhana. 

• Once you can separate sukha from piti, notice how sukha has two parts: the excited, uplifting joyfulness in your mind and the bubbling happiness within your heart's centre. Soften your interest in the joyfulness and bringing the feeling of happiness to the foreground of your awareness. Allow any remaining joyfulness to fade into the background of your peripheral awareness. 
• Once happiness within your hearts centre is in the foreground, gradually calm the bubbling, flowing quality of the happiness, developing a neutrality toward it until it becomes a subtly pleasurable happy-contentment. This will now be your object for entering jhana, and you will require this more stable version of access concentration to use such a refined object.

Step 4: Use happy-contentment to access the First & Second Pleasure Jhana. 

• Use the subtle pleasure of happy-contentment when strong enough as an object to access the First Pleasure Jhana. As you do, the piti of the First Pleasure Jhana will be very light, as your mind, already disenchanted with its stimulation, will pass through to a quite mature experience of sukha in the Second Pleasure Jhana, which is calmer and more heart felt than mind, felt.

Step 5: Develop and abide in the happy-contentment of the Third Pleasure Jhana.

• As joyfulness of mind moves to the background of your awareness and content-happiness to the foreground, the remaining background piti will completely fade away. Gently rest your awareness on the pleasure of happy-contentment will fill your foreground experience and allow your awareness to flow with and absorb into this experience. 
•  As the feeling grows, allow it to fill your foreground experience, with any remnants of joyfulness fading into the background. Continue to develop happiness and satisfaction with this peaceful, content stillness within your heart's centre until your awareness flows with and absorbs into this experience. 
• The experience of the Third Pleasure Jhana is one of vast stillness, deeply serene, tranquil, peaceful, content and deeply satisfying, accompanied by an extremely clear clarity of mindful comprehension of these other jhana qualities.

Step 6: Pervade your body and mind with happy-contentment. 

• Bring awareness to your heart's centre and allow the feeling of happy-contentment to flow. Expand awareness to all parts of your body and mind, allowing the pleasure of happy-contentment to pervade them until they become steady, firm, and unmoving in samadhi. 
• When this subtle pleasure of happy-contentment is experienced, your mind will become unmoving, still and tranquil. Equanimity towards sukha-vedana and dukkha-vedana (pleasant feeling / unpleasant feeling) will start to arise within your mind.

Step 7: Develop the conditions for the Fourth Pleasure Jhana. 

• As you become fluent in the Third Pleasure Jhana, and dwell in it regularly, it will mature in steadiness of contentment, and the strength of equanimity of your mind will gradually increase. This is experienced as a growing neutrality and disenchantment of heart toward the happiness and pleasure within the Third Pleasure Jhana. As neutrality deepens, so will the depth of contentment, equanimity and the firmness of the unmoving stillness of the samadhi present.

Step 8: Allow your mind to absorb into the Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

• As neutrality and contentment of heart further deepen, your mind will become disenchanted with the doing of the doer and you will notice it incline toward abiding in equanimity toward all experience and experiencing. Gently rest your awareness on the experience of equanimity + unmovingness and allow it to fill your foreground experience, with any remnants of pleasantness & happiness fading into the background. Continue to incline toward complete neutrality, relaxing back any interest in experiencing or doing until your awareness flows with and absorbs into this experience. 
• With the experience of mature equanimity in the Fourth Pleasure Jhana, there is no more disturbance, unmoving steadiness in clarity of comprehension, and complete seclusion: clear, still quiet, purity, and complete continuity of mindfulness are your dominant experiences.

Step 9: Pervade your body and mindfulness with equanimity. 

• Expand your awareness to and allow the experience of the purity and unmovingness of  equanimity to pervade the whole of your experience so that no part of your experience is unpervaded. Allow this experience to become steady, firm, and unmoving in samadhi, enjoying the complete seclusion from sensory stimulation and all doing.

Sotapanna (Stream Entry) is the first of four mature insights leading to the experience of Nibbana that permanently uproots specific fetters (that which binds) from the mind. These fetters are the direct conditions for all Meditative Hindrances to arise. With Stream Entry, two fetters are removed & one hindrance is uprooted from the mind, two skillful perceptions of reality are developed, and one wholesome quality is established. 

Creating the Conditions for Stream Entry from the Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

You can begin to create the conditions for Stream Entry from the Fourth Pleasure Jhana. This is done by being curious about the fading of the jhana factors and rearising of the engagement of your mind with your six sense fields as your mind emerges from jhana and you enter your day. This can be enhanced by precise investigations into anatta (autonomous nature) and idappaccayatā: Specific Conditionality included in Cultivation 06 on Sotapanna: Stream Entry. 

Step 1:  + Mindfulness, balanced effort, tranquility, unification, & equanimity. 

• Your first step is to develop your skill in accessing and abiding in the Fourth Pleasure Jhana. Learn to clearly define the factors that make up that particular jhana. A list can be found in the Progression Map below. When emerging from the Fourth Pleasure Jhana your mind will have the above Awakening Factors. Curiosity and Meditative Joy were abandoned in earlier jhana and need to be re-established. 
• Your mind is ready for Stream Entry insight because of the equanimity that continues in your mind after emerging from the Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

Step 2: + Curiosity.

• When your mind emerges from the Fourth Pleasure Jhana, you will need to arouse the Awakening Factor of curiosity. This is done by taking an interest in and observing the rearising of the interaction between your mind with the six sensory fields. Your curiosity should be toward the anicca (impermanent) and anatta (autonomous) nature of the jhana factors and the awareness of the six sense fields.

Step 3: + Meditative Joy.

• When your mind emerges from the Fourth Pleasure Jhana, you will need to arouse the Awakening Factor of meditative joy. Arouse within your mind a pleasurable interest in this investigation of the rearising of the interaction between your mind with the six sensory fields. This can be done by enjoying curiosity and appreciating the seclusion of mind that still remains. Gently smiling into it with your eyes will enhance the uplifting experience of joyfulness in your mind.

Step 4: Loosen up your attention.

• Start to loosen up your attention's unification so that it can swap to khanika samadhi (momentary unification) for vipassana-insight. Observing the anatta nature of your attention as it swaps from samatha- based unified attention to vipassana based momentary unification for insight into the Five Aggregates. Re-establishing a background peripheral awareness of your body as Joyful Presence (Skill 04) creates a foundation from which you can develop deep insight into anatta and specific conditionality.

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                       Meditation Markers.

                                                               01: Body Relaxation.

                                                               02: Mind Relaxation.

                                                               03: Mindful Presence.

                                                               04: Joyful Presence.

                                                               05: Natural Breathing.

                                                               06: Length of Each Breath.

***                Markers 07-09: no longer needed.                 ***

                                                               10: Whole-Body Breathing.

                                                               11: Sustained Awareness.

                                                               12: Access Concentration.

                                                               13: First Pleasure Jhana.

                                                               14: Second Pleasure Jhana.

                                                               15: Third Pleasure Jhana.

16: Enchantment with Happiness →16: Fourth Pleasure Jhana.

17: Enchantment with Self.               17: Sotapanna: Stream Entry.

18: Enchantment with Habit.            18: Sakadagami: Once Returner.

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Progression Map for the Fourth Pleasure Jhana. 

COMPLETE UNCHANGING SECLUSION

Whereas Third Pleasure Jhana is defined by an absence of movement, the Fourth Pleasure Jhana is defined by the unchanging seclusion of unmoving equanimity and mindfulness.

FROM THIRD TO FOURTH JHANA

• By abandoning: happiness.

FOURTH SUKHA-VEDANA JHANA

• Vitakka/vicara: absent.
• Unification: complete.
• Seclusion: complete.
• Suppression: complete.
• Thinking: absent.
• Piti/sukha: absent.
• Sati: mindfulness is unmoving.
• Upekkha: the purity of equanimity fills all aspects of body and mind.

You are ready to progress to the training for Sakadagami: Once Returner when:

• You are skilled at entering and dwelling in the Fourth Pleasure Jhana.
• You have experienced Sotapanna: Stream Entry Insight and can meet the criteria listed in Meditation Skill 17: Sotapanna: Stream Entry 

Sotapanna: Stream Entry Insight is a complex insight your mind needs to process. I recommend not rushing to diagnose yourself as having reached Stream Entry and allowing your mind to process this insight. The above link will take you to a section that lists the changes in a MIDL insight meditator's mind after this insight. These changes will continue to deepen for many years to come. If you have contact with a teacher, there are also practices you can train, and if the conditions for your samadhi are stable, you can access the fruit of this insight. 

After Stream Entry Insight, I was advised by my teacher to wait 15 years, and then I would honestly know. Due to delusion, our mind can delude us about anything. It can create any experience that is possible to be had within this world and interpret any experience in any way that it wants. One truth you will understand with Stream Entry is that you live in Samasara, a place of specifically conditioned suffering. As such, life will eventually give you a hard time and test you. This is guaranteed.

If you take the position of "I don't know" and then return to weakening the hindrances, cultivating the wholesome and developing insight into anatta and specific conditionality, then you can't go wrong. If it was Stream Entry, your mind will become hypersensitive to tendencies of attraction and aversion, and you will never experience doubt regarding the path. If it was not Stream Entry, then you will not be wasting your time in delusion, will not delude others, and the path of calm, insight and harmonising will continue to unfold, and one day, you will experience Stream Entry.