The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
21 August 2024
Question: Can we enter all four jhāna state in other postures other than sitting cross-legged?
Than Ajahn: It’s difficult to enter jhāna in other postures because when you are in other postures you have to use the mind to control your body so your mind has to work, it has to deal with your body, hence the mind cannot become still. But when you sit down, you can disregard the body because the body doesn’t need any attention from the mind, so the mind can then pay attention to the meditation object and it will then gradually enter into the 4 stages of jhāna.
Question: Is it possible to enter all four jhāna using walking meditation?
Than Ajahn: Normally no, but under some unusual circumstances, yes. For example, there’s a story of a meditation teacher who was a disciple of Ajahn Mun.
He liked to do walking meditation at night in the forest and he would carry a lantern with a candle inside the lantern globe. When he was walking concentrating on his meditation object, suddenly he came across a tiger.
As soon as he saw the tiger, his mind suddenly went inside and entered jhāna and left the body alone. The mind didn’t acknowledge the body and wasn’t aware of it for quite some time because when the mind withdrew from that state of calm, the candle inside the lantern had already burnt out, yet he was still standing in the same position as before he entered into jhāna.
So, you need something drastic, like a life threatening situation, to force your mind to enter inside and leave your body temporarily. But to do this, you need to have strong mindfulness. If you don’t have strong mindfulness, when you see a tiger, you start jumping out of where you are instead of entering jhāna. With this meditation teacher, because he had strong mindfulness, as soon as the mind felt threatened by the tiger, instead of running away, the mind went inside into jhāna.
“Dhamma in English, May 28, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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