“If you keep doing your meditation practice and keep cultivating your mindfulness …., you'll know when you reach a level of absorption.”

The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.

27 November 2024

“If you keep doing your meditation practice and keep cultivating your mindfulness …., you'll know when you reach a level of absorption.”

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Question: How can one tell of progress in meditation practice—making advances from one level of absorption to the next? 

Than Ajahn: You'll be able to tell if you keep practising. It's like eating: you'll know how full you get. If you keep eating, you'll get to the point where you can no longer consume any more food, so then you know that you're fully stuffed. If you keep doing your meditation practice and keep cultivating your mindfulness either through using your breathing (ānāpānasati) or 'Buddho' (Buddhānu-sati) as your meditation subject, you'll know when you reach a level of absorption there will be a sense of fulfilment.

There is, however, no indication while practising that you've reached a certain level. 

There will instead be a sense of ease and lightness according to each level of absorption. It can feel like a gradual change as if you're stepping down a staircase. Or it can also feel a sudden drop like falling into a sinkhole. This is something beyond your control so you shouldn't worry about it. What concerns you is to be mindful at all times. Just stick to watching your in-breath and out-breath if breathing is your meditation subject.

Don't think about other things: focus on your breathing in and out and stick to it solely. That is, focus on the point which is most prominent, either at the tip of your nose or just above your upper lip—just keep focussing on that particular spot. Don't get distracted by random thoughts, and a sense of calm will arise. 

Whether it occurs gradually or suddenly is irrelevant.

To cultivate mindfulness is all that matters. 

Just don't think about other things no matter what. You shouldn't get bogged down nor elated by any type of progress. For instance, some people get caught up in a sense of rapture (pıti) that may arise and stop meditating. If so, then they'll get stuck with that sense of rapture. 

But if they carry on, they'll get pass that point and reach the end. If it were a bus, it'd be to take the ride until the final stop and not get off along the way. Once it has reached the final stop, it'd not go any further.

The final destination for the mind that you wish to get to is called 'ekaggatārammana', or one-pointedness. It's the so-called equanimity (upekkhā), which is when the mind is simply aware and does not conjure up anything. It is a sense of voidness with no rapture nor contentment. The only thing that remains is a sense of equanimity; such kind of happiness surpasses the kind that arises out of rapture. I would like you to keep meditating the same way you keep eating your meal, that is, until you feel content. When you reach the point where you can no longer consume any more, you'll know you've reached that level of fulfilment.

“Essential Teachings.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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