MEDITATION TECHNIQUES

Meditate Without A Goal !

Even if you let go of desires for the whole world, but if the desire for results in meditation ( Jhana) or enlightenment is there, the mind doesn't settle. It is not content with where you are in the meditation. It always looks forward to a certain experience. That means craving is there, and that itself is a hindrance. Jhana or samadhi happens only when the 5 hindrances are absent.

" At the last retreat I taught in Ipoh we had some incredible results. One lady , who was already sitting for four, five , or six hours at a time, sat for eight and a half hours on the last day. It was just so easy, she had so much stillness that she didn't want to move. That was because she had stopped ' doing things'. She had stopped making the mind move. Stillness was her goal, not seeing nimmittas or holding on to the breath, not attaining jhanas or Enlightenment. She had a meditation that had no destination. The aim is not getting somewhere, it's being here. Being here and being still. The last of the hindrances is doubt, always 'wanting to know'. That is just another 'doing' . Knowledge is almost like control: measuring is how we find out where we are in life. And that 'doing', measuring, and 'wanting to know', makes the mind move. Be quiet! You'll know later on. Don't interrupt the lecture; just wait and don't do anything. This is the path of samadhi. " - Ajahn Brahm

From Body Layer to Breath Layer (in & out )

It is helpful to spend the first ten minutes easing in to the breath meditation, instead of directly focusing on the breath the moment we sat down. We do this by first bringing the mind back to this moment and notice what is here.

1. First, rest your awareness on the BODY until SOUNDS become vivid in your awareness.

2. Then focus on SOUNDS until inner chatter settles down and the BREATH becomes vividly noticeable.

3. Finally, rest your awareness on the incoming and outgoing breath until the gap of the breath becomes vividly noticeable.

In this way, the mind goes from a concrete meditation object to more, and more subtle meditation objects as the meditation progress.

Jhana Guided Meditation For Contentment, Insight, and Awakening

Tips: Please stay with the breath after the guided audio stops to become fully established in stage 3 and allow stage 4 to unfold.

When the breath naturally becomes vivid in your awareness, just let the breath does the breathing while you simply watch without interfering. Be mindful of how you relate to whatever thoughts that arise, making sure you don't create aversion or desire towards it. When you know the breath going in and out for ~ 100 breaths in a row (naturally without forcing) , not missing one, that is the third stage of meditation.

Note: You should spend the first year on this first section alone ( step 1-3) . When this beginning section is done correctly and successfully, the next step will unfolds naturally on its own sometime during this period. Then you can expand to include it also. If not, just repeat these 3 steps for another year, eventually it will happens.

From Full Breath (in, out, gap) to Joy & Inner Happiness

Awareness of the GAP Also

4. Rest your attention on THE FULL BREATH ( in, out, gap) until JOY ( rapture) comes up.

5. Then place your attention on the GAP only until the breath seems like it disappears (because you are focusing on the gap) and only JOY & INNER HAPPINESS (piti- sukkha) remain.

Next, rest your attention on JOY & INNER HAPPINESS until they CALM also .

Jhana Guided Meditation (Stage 4-5)

Note: When you place awareness on the breath WHILES THE MIND IS QUIET, you can sense energy or prana building up as it goes in. Prana is not being scattered or used up by numerous restless thoughts. After a while, when enough energy is built up you experience it as contentment, rapture, inner happiness.

- Questions & Answers with Ajahn Brahm

Note: The prana layer carries all your desires. When purified, you will be able to go beyond this layer without much difficulties.The mental layer carries guilt. The development of virtue keeping the precepts help to clear this layer of all the guilt. Otherwise, all kinds of guilt will come up in meditation instead of gladness, joy and inner happiness.

From Joy & Happiness to Bliss

Visualization Layer: Seeing Nimmitta

This stage is achieved when one lets go of all awareness of the body and its 5 senses, the breath, and thought completely. The breath disappear, not when you want it to but when there is enough calm, leaving only the nimmitta ( a beautiful white light, golden star, blue pearl, etc.). It is the mind consciousness freed for the first time from the world of the 5 senses.

Bliss Layer: Jhana (Samadhi)

In exhilaration, the mind becomes excited: " Wow, this is it!" If the mind thinks like this, then jhana is unlikely to happen. So leave all the wows until after emerging from the jhana.

Another likely obstacle to jhana can be fear. The doer is silent before entering the jhana, but it is still there. Inside the jhana, however, the doer is completely gone. The fear we have is of surrendering this essential part of one's identity. Have the courage to fully relinquish control for awhile and let the jhana warmly embrace you in an effortless, bodiless, ego-less, and blissful experience that will be the most profound of your life.

Note: Having spiritual pride after a jhana can leads to one's downfall instead of forward towards Awakening.

"Wisdom Arises Automatically In One Who Has Jhana"- Buddha

" Be Still and Know":

Ajahn Brahm emphasizes that " Any meditator who has experienced the powerful Jhanas would know what a mind without any Hindrances is truly like. The meditator who hasn't known Jhanas does not realize the many subtle forms Hindrances can take. They may think that the hindrances are abandoned but ( they are just dormant and can erupt if given the right condition), the truth is , they just don't see them and so do not get great results in their meditation."

From Jhana to Enlightenment

The fourfold " Focus of Mindfulness" ( Satipathana Sutta) instruct one what to do when one has emerged from a Jhana, to uncover the deeply disguised delusion of a Soul and then see what the Lord Buddha saw, the Truth of Anatta. Having patiently completed the necessary preparations, the meditator sustains their mindfulness on one of the four focuses: their own body, the pleasure and pain associated with each sense, the mind consciousness and the objects of mind. This can take only seven days or more for one to become a stream enterer, once returner, non-returner, or Arahant. ( given one already has jhana before Satipathana). The Anapanasati Sutta takes one from Breath meditation to Jhana, and from Jhana to liberating insight of Anatta.

"For One With Both Jhana and Wisdom, They Are In the Presence of Nibbana." _- Buddha

Ajahn Brahm explains that wisdom is like a match, and Jhana is like gun powder. When you have one without the other, you can't really do much. But when you have both and put the two together, Bang! Awakening!.

There is no jhana without wisdom;

There is no wisdom without jhana;

But for one with both jhana and wisdom,

They are in the presence of nibbana.

- Buddha

Right Stillness

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The Noble Eightfold Path

A Social Network for Meditators and Spiritual Seekers to Learn Meditation Techniques and Spiritual Living. The Aim is to Cultivate Contentment, Compassion, Insight, and Awakening.