PERFECT STILLNESS BY AJAHN BRAHM

PERFECT STILLNESS BY AJAHN BRAHM

Today’s talk is on the final factor of the Eightfold Path, which would be accurate to call the culmination of the Path, samma samadhi. There is only one definition given

by the Buddha of samma samadhi and that is jhana. The Perfect Teacher consistently and repeatedly explained the final factor of the Path as one or more of the four jhanas.

Never, not even once, did the Buddha utter the words kha_ika samadhi (momentary concentration), upacara samadhi (neighbourhood concentration) or vipassana jhanas. These apocryphal terms were coined much later than the time of the Buddha. A disciple of the Buddha, one who faithfully follows his teachings, must of necessity

repeat the Buddha’s explanation that samma samadhi means the four jhanas, only the four jhanas, and nothing but the four jhanas.

I maintain that the jhanas were rediscovered by Siddhattha Gotama for this age. They

are crucial for the attainment of the Path. The only people who say that Enlightenment is possible without the jhanas are those who have never experienced a jhana. If you have the experience of jhanas you know their power, importance, and value, which is why the eighth factor of the Eightfold Path is samma samadhi. It’s an important factor of the path.

However, because Buddhism has only recently come to Western countries, people are still struggling to understand the importance of the term jhanas. In past times they thought, ‘Yeah, it sounds very good’, but the names given to it, for example, ‘absorptions’, or ‘right concentration’, or ‘trances’ always missed the point. That is quite obvious when you achieve a state called an ttarimanussadhamma, a state beyond the normal human experience. It’s the first real stage of transcendence. Scholars have a hard time understanding what that means, let alone understanding its
importance to the Path. Giving it a good descriptive name may help people understand why they have misunderstood its meaning, let alone know the path to attain it as an experience.

These days I really shy away from calling samadhi ‘right concentration’. I’ve been calling it ‘right letting go’ for a long time now and this evening I’m going to give it another name, ‘perfect stillness’ or ‘right stillness’. The reason I say that is because it is the stillness of the mind that not only gives rise to samma samadhi, the jhanas, but it’s also a beautiful description showing the way to get into these stages. It’s very important people experience these stages and discover how easy they are. If we give these stages the right name, a name that describes them at least with some of their important features, even if not perfectly, that will make it easier.

It becomes quite clear why some people, even some monks, do not attain those stages in their lifetimes, if they are trying to attain concentration. The very word concentration in the Western world means some ‘doing’, some force, or work. We are told at school to concentrate as if it is something that you do through an exercise of will. When we understand what samadhi is, what jhana is, then we understand what a stupid idea that is. It goes in completely the opposite direction of what’s needed to
gain samadhi.

The experience of samadhi shows you the way out of sa_sara. It shows you what Enlightenment is. It shows you the doorway to the ‘deathless’. So it’s very apt to call
the jhanas the doorway to the deathless. Yes, we practise all the factors of the Eightfold Path, but it is essential that they culminate in the jhanas. The jhanas are the doorway, and through them you get the insights and wisdom that carry you all the way to cessation. But first of all you have to attain those stages of stillness, the jhanas
themselves.

When we investigate these states of stillness it becomes quite clear that every time we do something we are disturbing the mind. We’re disturbing the process and making it tremble; we’re making the mind wobble. We are doing exactly the thing that stops the attainment. That is why when we talk about these stages – the culmination of
which is the stillness of the mind – it becomes quite evident and clear that the obstructions to the path and the obstacles to the jhanas arise because we are always getting involved, interfering, controlling, and managing, even by just having destinations or goals.

Source : PERFECT STILLNESS

Extract from SIMPLY THIS MOMENT!

by AJAHN BRAHM

[https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Simply-This-Moment.pdf]


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