Jhāna

Jhāna

The highest level of concentration—fixed penetration—follows on threshold concentration. If mindfulness and alertness arise while you are in threshold concentration, they turn it into jhāna.

Jhāna means focusing the mind, making it absorbed in a single object, such as the form of the body. If you want jhāna to arise and not deteriorate, you have to practice until you are skilled. 

Here’s how it’s done: Think of a single object, such as the breath. Don’t think of anything else. 

Practice focusing on your single object. 

Now add the other factors: Vitakka—think about the object; and vicāra—evaluate it until you arrive at an understanding of it, e.g. seeing the body as unclean or as composed of impersonal properties. 

The mind then becomes light; the body becomes light; both body and mind feel full and refreshed: This is pīti, rapture. 

The body has no feelings of pain, and the mind experiences no pain: This is sukha, pleasure and ease. This is the first level of rūpa jhāna, which has five factors: singleness (ekaggatā), directed thought, evaluation, rapture, and pleasure.

When you practice, start out by focusing on a single object, such as the breath. Then think about it, adjusting and expanding it until it becomes dominant and clear. As for rapture and pleasure, you don’t have to fabricate them. 

They arise on their own. Singleness, directed thought, and evaluation are the causes; rapture and pleasure, the results. Together they form the first level of jhāna.

As you become more skilled, your powers of focusing become stronger. 

The activities of thought and evaluation fade away, because you’ve already gained a certain level of understanding. As you focus in on the object, there appears only rapture—refreshment of body and mind; and pleasure—ease of body and mind. 

Keep focusing in on the object so that you’re skilled at it. Don’t withdraw. 

Keep focusing until the mind is firm and well established.

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From Craft of the Heart, by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.