This is a feeling meditation; you are cultivating the feeling of loving-kindness or mettā. This is also a smiling meditation. While you are sitting, put a little smile on your lips and feel that smile in your heart and in your mind. The smile helps to bring up the feeling and when the smile disappears it is an early warning signal that the feeling has disappeared with it. Then just bring it up again and keep your smile going for that meditation session. There is research that proves that smiling, even if you don’t feel like it, triggers your brain to feel better! When you turn up your mouth, you turn up your attitude! And if you don’t believe the Buddha talked about smiling, he did describe his monks being happy in MN. Sutta 89: “We are the happy ones.”
At first, you can only stay with your object of meditation for five seconds or so, and then the attention wanders away; you get lost in thought, or you are listening to a sound, or your attention goes to a feeling in the body. As hindrances subside, the attention and awareness stay longer with your object, for a few seconds to a minute. The practice is improving. It is the same as someone who is out of shape must train themselves to get stronger. Gradually, with practice, the feeling and the collectedness go deeper.
A process called the 6Rs, which comes from your attention being focused in the right way, uses the Eight-fold path’s Right Effort, or as Bhante Vimalaraṁsi likes to call it, Harmonious Practice, to let go of hindrances as they arise. When mind starts to wander, you immediately:
Recognize that you have gone off into thought. When you realize you aren’t with your spiritual friend anymore — just stop right there. It is like you are driving a car and a dog runs out in the middle of the street — you Recognize he is there.
Then youRelease your attention from the thought and thereby stop feeding it; you just stop paying attention to the thought and allow it to be there by itself without keeping your attention on it. In our example of the dog running out in the street, you now take your foot off the gas — Release. It is very different from the Vipassanā noting practice in which you mentally “note” that distraction that arises until it goes away.
You Relax any tension and tightness still left as the thought fades away. This tension or tightness is how you can recognize there is craving in your mind. This is what pulled your attention to the distraction. All thoughts have a certain amount of tension and tightness in them. Therefore, we think and think and think… This craving process keeps mind active, going from one thing to another. When you relax this tightness, you will notice that mind becomes very clear, bright, and alert without any other distracting thoughts. In our example with the car, we now put our foot on the brake to stop any further forward momentum — Relax.
Your mind, at that time, has let go of craving and becomes pure. Why is it pure? Because there is no more tension and tightness in your mind. This is how you purify your mind and start to see your personality change.
For example, let us say you have fear or sadness in your mind. Then you recognize this and let it be there without trying to make it go away. Next, you relax the tightness in your mind. Mind then becomes clear and bright. Every time you relax this tightness, you are cleansing your mind, until, eventually, this fear or sadness has lost all its energy and no longer arises. Thus, you have purified mind of old habitual tendencies that have caused so much suffering in the past.
Then, you Re-smile — put a little smile on your lips and radiate that smile from your eyes, your heart, and your mind. Smiling is an important part of the practice. It helps to keep your mind light and keeps you from becoming too serious, tense, and tight. You use smiling as a tool to bring up a wholesome feeling, replacing the thought process that had taken you away from your meditation object. And with the car example, you are now stopped and relaxed. Now put your foot on the gas again — resmile!
You then Return to your object of meditation and Repeat, continuing to send loving-kindness to yourself and a spiritual friend. Every distraction is treated in this way. Just continue to drive to your destination. And watch out for dogs!
Gradually you will become more experienced with this procedure, and it even begins to happen automatically. Running the 6Rs becomes almost a “rolling” of the Rs. It becomes a fluid motion.
In the 6rs the two most important parts of the process, after you recognize you have wandered off, is to release and just stop what you were thinking about. Just stop what your mind is doing. Don’t force it to stop, just don’t pay attention anymore. Let it fade away. The second thing is to relax any forward motion that keeps pulling you to think about that subject some more. That is the craving to think that is grasping at your attention. Release it and then relax that tension and tightness. Then return with a smiling mind to your object of meditation.
Developing loving-kindness with a spiritual friend is unusual compared to most other methods of developing loving-kindness. Why do we not immediately start sending loving-kindness out to all beings? Why just this one person?
Sending mettā out to all beings as you begin this practice scatters mind too much. Staying with only a single spiritual friend helps you to develop your collectedness. Learning the 6Rs and perfecting them with that one person helps you effortlessly to advance to the higher stages. When the feeling of loving-kindness has strengthened and stabilized, you can then spread it to all beings in all directions. In the suttas, this is called pervading the feeling of mettā into the six directions.
Chapter Six: 1st Jhāna — Joy
When your attention stays with the feeling of loving-kindness and your spiritual friend, for about three to five minutes, then joy will arise; congratulations you have arrived at the first tranquil aware jhāna!
How does a jhāna arise? First, a distraction arises, fueled by one or more of the hindrances. Whatever it happens to be — greed, hatred, or restlessness — as you let it go, relax, and come back to your object of meditation, the hindrance begins to weaken. When a hindrance arises, it is not your enemy to fight with. Rather, it is a friend for you to invite in, allowing it to show you where your attachments are.
Every time you 6R the hindrance, it grows weaker. Why? Because you have released the craving which is embedded in the distraction arising. Finally, you do one last 6R process, and the hindrance completely disappears. It just has no further energy. From this release and resulting relief, the first jhāna arises, and mind enters into a pure state. When the hindrance runs out of energy, you have a real sense of relief. You feel joy arising, which is an exciting, happy feeling. You will feel light in both your mind and body. Quite nice!
Hindrances are constantly tightening down on our awareness and pulling our mood down. They lead to a lot of frowning and stress. Now you see the beginning of real happiness arising. It is like you have been in a coarse, painful state your whole life and someone just switches it off.
You feel joy (pīti) in the head, in the chest, and throughout the body. It may feel full or warm or light. It may be like bubbles popping. It may be subtle or, for some, it may be felt as more extreme joy. There might be some mental and visual activities, or even fireworks going on behind your closed eyes. This will settle down after a period of time, a few hours or a day. The mental state will be energized and joyful, and it will definitely be a pleasant feeling. There will be no hindrances at this time. This is a big relief. Right after the joy fades away, mind will become very tranquil and comfortable; this is called happiness or sukha. Mind just stays on its object with almost no effort at all. You have never experienced happiness and clarity like this before.
What is joy? Excitement and a happy feeling are the nature of joy at this beginning stage. A man in a desert who is dying of thirst, spots in the distance an oasis and a pool of cool water. He becomes very excited and happy. This is the feeling of joy. The moment he sees it, joy arises. This is what happens in the first jhāna.
The joy in the first jhāna is followed by a feeling of tranquility and relaxation. You are still in the first jhāna, but it is changing. You will feel this. You will
be smiling and radiant. The jhāna will last for a while until another hindrance pops up.
Sometimes the joy is not strong, and meditators are not sure they have achieved anything, so they don’t mention it. On a retreat, over the course of the daily interviews, the teacher will inquire about what is happening to you. They will ask you, "Is there any joy?" The teacher will get a hint when you say you can stay on your meditation object for a longer period of time.
Let’s follow this simile a bit longer and do a brief explanation of the next three jhānas so you can see how the practice develops.
As you continue meditating, your joy from the first jhāna will deepen. There will arise a feeling of strong confidence. This is a quieter, deeper joy where both mind and body become very light, almost like floating. Both mind and body become very tranquil, comfortable, and peaceful. This is the second jhāna.
When the man finally arrives at the pool of cool water and jumps in, the temperature of the water is just right. Both his mind and body kind of give a gentle sigh of relief — this is where he experiences happiness and contentment. This is the feeling of happiness (sukha) and a developing sense of mental balance that occurs in the third jhāna.
This happiness will fade away just leaving a stability of mind that is a feeling of equanimity (upekkhā), which is the fourth jhāna.
The Suttas Explain the Jhānas
The Anupada Sutta, “One By One As They Occurred” Number 111, from the Majjhima Nikāya (MN), explains the entire process and all the characteristics of the jhānas up to the attainment of Nibbāna. I will use this sutta to explain throughout the rest of the book the jhānas “one by one,” and the subsequent progress to awakening.
The sutta MN 111 starts: "And the states in the first jhāna — the thinking and examining thought, the joy, the happiness, and the unification of mind;”[x]
You have let go of a hindrance, and joy arises. There are five different kinds of joy. The first kind of joy is like goosebumps; it is there for just a moment, and then it goes away. The next kind of joy is like a flash of lightning; it's very intense for a very short period, and then that fades away. The third kind of joy is as if you are standing in the ocean and you have these waves of joy washing over you; it's just wave after wave. These three kinds of joy can happen to anyone for any reason when the conditions are right.
The last two types of joy only arise from mental development. The fourth kind of joy is called uplifting joy. You feel very light in your mind and light in your body. You feel very happy, and there is excitement in it. This is the joy of the first and second jhānas.
The fifth and last kind of joy is called all-pervading joy. It just kind of comes out of everywhere; it bubbles out all over and pervades your whole mind. (This kind of joy is also called the awakening factor of Joy.) This is the joy you feel when you attain Nibbāna.
So, the fourth type of joy arises, and right after that, when it fades away, you feel very tranquil and comfortable in your mind and in your body. This feeling is what the Buddha calls sukha, which is the Pāli word for happiness. Your mind does not wander very much in your meditation; it doesn't get lost. There is still the thinking and examining mind; you still can internally verbalize thoughts about your experience. You are still thinking, but now only wholesome states are there — though it is still a bit “noisy” as compared to the states that come later. You are not carried away by unwholesome thoughts. There is no craving now. Thoughts that occur are thinking and examining thoughts that have to do with what you are feeling right now, in the present.
You feel very peaceful and collected. In Pāli, the word for this state is ekaggatā. And if you look up the word in the Pāli dictionary, ekagga means tranquility, peacefulness, and stillness of mind. It doesn’t mean one-pointed or absorption, but rather, collected and unified.
The sutta explains there are five factors in the first jhāna: thinking and examining thought, joy, happiness, and unification of mind. The sutta goes on to explain what else is there:
MN: the contact, feeling, perception, volition, and mind…
The five aggregates — body, feeling, perception, formations (volitions), and consciousness — are also present in this jhāna. This means that all the foundations of mindfulness are there and will be observed. These comprise who you are, and you can see all the aggregates there without the veil of craving. You see with “little dust in your eyes.”
Then the sutta says:
“[T]he enthusiasm, decision, energy, mindfulness, equanimity, and attention — these states were defined by him one by one as they occurred; known to him those states arose, known they were present, known they disappeared.
What are we talking about here? We're talking about impermanence. You begin to see impermanence while you are in the jhāna; you see these things arise and pass away one by one as they occur. The factors listed in the sutta don't necessarily follow the order that they're given here; they come up whenever they're going to come up. These are the first initial insights or understandings (vipassanā in Pāli) that arise for you.
MN: “He understood thus: 'So indeed, these states, not having been, come into being; having been, they vanish.’”
An obstacle that sometimes comes here is that some meditators will try to 6R the joy and happiness that arises, thinking that they might get attached to it. They think they should try to suppress it and not allow it to be there.
You do not need to do this, you should let this happy feeling be there with full acceptance, but still go back to your spiritual friend and continue the meditation. This joy is a fruit of the practice and is wholesome. Just let it be. It is okay for you to have joy. It's okay to be happy! It’s kind of a new idea to let happiness be there and not push it away. And to even develop it and keep the happy state going which is the last part of Right Effort.
If you have excessive thoughts and start thinking about what just happened (the joy arising), you can 6R those thoughts and let them go, as you’ve started to take the joy personally and become attached to it. That is craving, and that keeps us on the Wheel of Saṃsāra — the Wheel of Suffering. Again, you should never push the joy away; just 6R it, allow it but don’t get involved in it. It is a wholesome state, and wholesome states are what we are striving for.
The Buddha said it is part of Right Effort to notice an unwholesome state and bring up a wholesome state. He didn’t say to replace a wholesome state with an “even more wholesome” state. Wholesome is wholesome. Just let it be. It is enough.
Gradually, this happy feeling will subside. Or possibly it may come up again and again over a few days — it will be there as long as it is there.
There was a fellow who had tears rolling down his cheeks, and everyone thought he was upset. It was joy and, finally, he was told just to get a towel and let the tears fall on that. No need to make it stop. It will stop on its own.
After some time, you will lose this happy feeling, and the hindrances will come back. You will certainly start to think, "Oh if I could just get that experience again!" This is craving and should be 6R’d.
Often, at this stage, if you fail to follow the teacher’s instructions to 6R, you might go around trying to figure out how to get that state back. And you won’t!
Subsequently, you might "crash and burn, " and the next day you will be frustrated at not being able to bring back the experience. Some meditators are “smarter” than others: they just go back to the meditation as they had practiced it before and continue following the instructions. Some may take an extra day, and that's okay. We all have to learn. Wanting something only creates frustration in mind. We need to 6R that too.
—Meditation Instruction:
On a retreat, the teacher will now give you further instructions. For those of you using this book on your own, please pay attention to this next instruction.
After you feel this joyful feeling arising, you can drop the verbalization for your spiritual friend — “May you be happy,” “May you be peaceful," etc. Just feel
the wish for their happiness without mentally verbalizing. There is no further need for the phrases as they may cause tension and tightness in your head — and we certainly don’t wish to create more tightness.
This is a sign of progress in your meditation. Your thoughts have quieted down, and you are starting to experience the quieting presence of the second jhāna. More about this jhāna in the next chapter.
The teacher will not tell you what jhāna you are in until you have gotten to the fourth jhāna. At that stage, you will have a firm grip on the technique and how to 6R distractions. You understand that these are just levels of understanding and tranquility that you are going through. As your meditation progresses, you start to develop some equanimity and won’t care so much what state you are in. At that point, the teacher will tell you that you have become an “advanced” meditator and congratulate you on your progress — but there is more to do.
Walking Meditation and the Jhānas
Walking is an important part of this meditation, as it helps to sustain energy, overcome sloth and torpor, and maintain health generally when you are sitting for long periods of time. However, one of the most important purposes of walking meditation is to enable you to practice integrating TWIM meditation into your daily life. The purpose of meditation is to bring change to all parts of your life all the time, not just while you are sitting. Walking meditation will help you to accomplish this.
While you were sitting, you were staying with your Spiritual Friend and 6Ring distractions. Now, the only difference is that you are walking, just strolling normally, and keeping your mind on radiating kind thoughts to your spiritual friend, in the same way, when you were sitting (see A Guide to TWIM for an in-depth discussion of how to do walking meditation.)
The Path to Nibbana Page 8
