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Forwarded from Ajahn Chah - Theravada Thailand Buddhism

A jhana will last a long time. It does not deserve to be called a jhana if it lasts only a few minutes. The higher jhanas usually persist for many hours. Once inside, there is no choice. One will emerge from the jhana only when the mind is ready to come out. Each jhana is such a still and satisfying state of consciousness that its very nature is to persist for a very long time. This is not a trance but a heightened state of awareness. I say this so that you may know for yourself whether what you take to be a jhana is real or imaginary.

A lot of people, after getting a few of these jhanas, want to become a monk or a nun. The world becomes less attractive. Relationships, the arts, music and movies, sex, fame, wealth, and so on, all seem so unimportant and unattractive when compared to the freed mind. But there is much more than just bliss. There is also the philosophical profundity of the experience. The Buddha called it uttari-manussa-dhamma, something that surpasses ordinary experience. He also considered the happiness of jhana so similar to enlightenment happiness that he named it sambodhi sukha, bliss of enlightenment.

So if you develop these stages, the first twelve steps of anapanasati, they will lead you into jhana.

THE LAST FOUR STEPS in the Anapanasati Sutta relate to the meditator who has just emerged from a jhana. After you emerge from your first experience of jhana, you can’t help but think, “Wow, what was that?” So the first thing you should do is review the jhana. Investigate that experience, though you will struggle to give it words. Ask yourself, How did it arise? What special thing did I do? What did it feel like in jhana? Why did it feel like that? How do I feel now? Why is it so blissful? All of these reflections will give rise to deep insight.

You’ll find that the best words to describe why jhana happened are “letting go.” You’ve really let go for the first time. Not letting go of what you’re attached to, but letting go of the thing doing the attaching. You’ve let go of the doer. You’ve let go of the self. It’s a difficult thing for the self to let go of the self, but through these methodological stages you’ve actually done it. And it’s bliss.

The first of these last four steps, the thirteenth step, is reflecting on anicca, usually translated as “impermanence.” What’s important to reflect upon after deep experiences of meditation is that previously there had been something that was so constant that you never noticed it—this thing we call a “self.” In jhana, it disappeared! Notice that. Noticing it will convince you of the truth of no-self (anatta) so deeply that it’s very likely to put you on a direct path to enlightenment.

If reflections on anicca fail to work, there is viraga, the fading away of things (step fourteen). This is when things just disappear. You’ve seen many things disappear when you enter jhana—some which were so close to you that you assumed that they were an essential part of your identity. They are all gone in jhana. You’re experiencing the fading away of yourself. The third reflection after emerging from a jhana, step fifteen, should be on nirodha, or cessation. Something that was once there has now completely disappeared. It has ended, gone, and its place is now empty! Such emptiness can be known only in deep meditation. So much of the universe that you thought was essential has ceased, and you’re in a completely different space.

The last of the reflections described in the Anapanasati Sutta is on the wonderful word patinissagga, “letting go, abandoning.” In this context patinissagga is giving away not what’s “out there” but what’s “in here.” Many times people regard Buddhism as being unworldly, giving away what’s out there. But patinissagga is the letting go of the inner world, the letting go of the doer and even the knower. If you look very carefully, you’ll see what has been happening in jhana is not only letting go of the external world but also letting go of the internal world, especially letting go of the doer, the will, the controller.

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