Why Do Meditation Teachers Ignore Perfect Concentration?
I’ve been considering more lately about doing retreats here in Thailand. I may do them here in Krabi, or a couple of other places may be possibilities. I have a friend with vast experience with retreats and the topic of meditation who has a good idea what people want or expect in a retreat.
I realized I have no idea what people want. I know what I can teach. I don’t have the slightest idea what people expect in a meditation retreat because I’ve never felt the need to attend one. I have talked to many people who have experienced them, but not done so myself.
So, that part isn’t going to change. I am not going to waste a few days or 10 days of my life to go see what’s happening at these retreats. But I can watch some videos on YouTube and see what is going on.
Why Meditation Teachers Ignore Perfect Concentration
In short, it’s because people have trouble attaining it. That’s the easy answer. Imagine teaching a meditation class or retreat where people expect results, and can’t reach the result? People who go on retreat want to get somewhere. They want to experience something. They want to go further than they were able to on their own. They want help. They want answers. They want magic, without doing the work, to be honest.
What better way to ensure your students are getting somewhere than to change the definition of Access Concentration to lighten it up to suit your needs? Make it easier. Make it attainable for most meditators?
Yesterday I began listening to videos by Rob Burbea, Leigh Brasington, and Ajahn Achalo. Rob’s was something like an overview or a primer for his 3-week Jhana course. He was sick with something, possibly cancer, but was pushing on through and trying to do a long retreat. Leigh was talking about his idea of Access Concentration. Ajahn Achalo was talking about getting into First Jhana.
Rob Burbea on Access Concentration
I wrote a short post about Rob Burbea’s idea of Jhana a short while ago here. I had listened to some of his videos on YT and found some commonality. Not heaps, but some. Listening to this new video (new for me), I realized that there is almost nothing that he said that I would say to people in a retreat setting.
He certainly has the gift of gab. He has a soothing voice and I think he’s from the United Kingdom. It’s almost like he’s a poet coming up with beautiful ways to say things. It was nice to listen to but I think he and I couldn’t be further from each other. I think he’s passed on by now so I won’t get a chance to talk with him directly and see if we agree on anything.
In short, he was talking about feelings and thoughts and beliefs and superstition and more topics that to me have very little to do with a Jhana practice or retreat. One thing that struck me was he was encouraging the audience to really take part in the process leading up to Jhana. He was saying that they are responsible for the joy, the piti, that will take them into the First Jhana.
It was as if he was saying they should suffuse themselves with joy and happiness and rapture to ensure they can find it during their meditation session and that it could lead them into Jhana.
This is nothing like I ever heard before, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s a common way of teaching.
I listened for about 50 minutes and turned it off. I felt like I had a better idea what his practice was all about. I felt like that was probably my last taste of Rob Burbea.
Leigh Brasington on Access Concentration
Leigh Brasington I have been aware of for maybe 10 years now. I know he has spoken a lot on meditation and Jhana. I know he has held retreats and I think he probably wrote meditation books as well. I talk about his Jhana overview page here that I found interesting.
Leigh started the video talking all about Access Concentration and how the state includes feelings and thoughts that, if they’re quiet enough, can be ignored as much as possible as the meditator somehow focuses on joy and bliss and lovingkindness during the meditation. He said when the mind has calmed down enough that there’s a good feeling and just a few thoughts and feelings, then that is Access Concentration.
A bit shocked, I had heard enough. I turned it off.
If true, Access Concentration is a walk in a park. I’m not sure why anyone is going to retreats. If this is what’s needed to get into Jhana then the bar has just been lowered considerably from what I ever heard before.
Keep in mind, I’ve heard little as I haven’t researched what other meditation teachers are saying and teaching. After yesterday, I’m probably done to be honest.
If anyone is aware of teachers or monks talking about Access Concentration as absolute perfect Samadhi without thought, without feeling, without ego, without being able to think, without anything but total concentration on the feeling of the breath in the nose (or other object), please would you let me know?
Ajahn Achalo’s Process for Access Concentration and Entering Jhana
Though he was originally at Wat Pah Nanachat with Ajahn Jayasaro in Ubon Ratchathani years ago (1993 I believe it was), I had never heard of this Australian monk before yesterday. There were things I absolutely loved about what he said, and things that were obvious Buddhist myth.
The continuous repetition of Buddhist principles instills a rigid, unchallenged belief system in monks, majee, and followers, making critical thought or public disagreement of myth and superstition essentially impossible.
How can you disagree with dead people who wrote the Suttas? It’s like people who take some of the statements in the Christian Bible to be truth. They never take ALL the statements, because some of them almost nobody believes match reality, but they pick and choose.
Buddhists have this idea that past lives can be known by any monk with a robe on. The idea that someone could actually know that comes from the Abhinnas.
Though I have had a couple of experiences with certain Abhinnas and do believe those ones are true, I have zero experience with past lives AND it is stated in the Buddhist texts that Abhinnas can be present after someone is reaching Fourth Jhana.
Thing is, there are very, VERY few Buddhist monks reaching Fourth Jhana at all. I don’t know any. Are there any monks reading that want to tell us all about your Fourth Jhana experience? And I mean Deep Fourth Jhana, not someone walking you through it in a guided meditation.
I’ve talked to a lot of monks at Wat Pah Nanachat. Wat Nong Pa Pong. At temples all over Thailand. I have never met a monk who talked about Fourth Jhana from a personal perspective.
In many cases, followers actually come to believe that merit and karma contribute something substantial in helping or hurting a person’s meditation practice.
Complete nonsense that I’ve heard over and over in different ways from some of the monks I respected the most.
Some Quotes from the Video
- “I think many people who think they have Jhana, don’t have Jhana.”
- “Jhana is not common.”
- There’s course, intermediate, and refined Samadhi (concentration).
- The kind of effort that’s required for proper Samadhi is meditating 5 hours per day for 27 years as a monk (what he did) and then doing 8-10 hours of meditation per day in India at intensive retreats for more than 8 days.
He thinks these things can affect whether you reach Jhana:
- merits
- efforts
- mindfulness
Of these, I agree with the last two. The first one, merits, is another surfacing of that ridiculous Buddhist idea that making merit has affects on your practice. Things like giving greatly of yourself to help the monks or help someone who is in a needy spot. Buddhism is filled with this and it has absolutely no effect on any sort of meditation outcome. In my humble opinion (IMHO) and direct experience.
He also says that to increase your chances of reaching Jhana you should start with one session per day, move to two, then reach three sessions per day and do some retreats every year. This is what’s necessary to increase your chances.
The problem is, he’s talking about 3 times per day in meditative sessions where your only aim is dumbed down Samadhi? Just sitting in whatever level of Samadhi that you have for a longer duration is going to propel you to more concentrated levels of Samadhi? Not sure what he’s saying really.
Here is his video talking about types of Samadhi, and getting into First Jhana. He states around the 7 minute mark, “That does lead to first Jhana in my experience. I can’t speak to the other ones.”
Does that mean he hasn’t seen Second Jhana? Not sure what he meant by that. I may have misunderstood.
Another quote (not exact) – Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of hours of practice is what it takes to learn the sensitive dance around concentration on the object of meditation, merging with the object, deepening the tranquility, the rapture, staying very still.
Anyway, where he is talking about the factors of Jhana and the delicate dance that is necessary in order to progress into the First Jhana is pretty right on with my experience, so I did enjoy part of the video.
My Take on Access (Perfect Concentration)
To me, though I have enjoyed nice periods of peace and tranquility and good feeling during my early meditations at times, I can clearly see the massive difference in what that is versus what Perfect Concentration is.
Most monks and teachers of all kinds are only teaching a very loose concentration practice as necessary for experiencing the Jhanas.
Why? Because it’s easier to reach that sort of concentration. Though I don’t remember exactly how long it took me to reach it the first time, it was only a matter of a month or two total from the time I started to meditate.
Telling people that Jhana comes out of this is a bit misleading. I’ve never heard of Deep Jhana coming out of such shallow concentration states.
To me, concentration is only correct and the proper preparation for Jhana when Perfect Concentration is reached. When you move toward Jhana after Perfect Concentration the steps are rock solid how to reach Jhana and move through them. It’s much less nebulous than the idea that you can just reach a shallow concentration state that somehow magically turns into the First Jhana.
The idea that Ajahn Achalo needs 5 to 10 hours a day of meditation to reach the right level of concentration/Samadhi is something I’ve never heard of anywhere else.
Oh, just one closing statement Aj. Achalo said before I wind this down.
“Some people appear to develop Samadhi more quickly. Those are the people who’ve put in vast efforts in their past lives. So, if someone appears to progress quickly, they’ve put in the hours before.”
Again, more Buddhist propaganda. This is something that cannot possibly be known, and yet monks will repeat this kind of thing over and over as they insist it’s correct. Why? Because someone told them it was. Like Hell Realms. Like Deva Realms. Like all the other ridiculousness.
Instead of listen to someone’s stories you can never verify or disprove, just practice your own way.
Value your own experience.
Ignore Buddhist superstition and myth and go about it on your own, with your own ideas based on fact and your own direct experience.
Buddhists don’t have a monopoly on meditation, Jhana, the truth, or anything else. They are simply sheep following a leader who appears to have reached a nice state of mind and knowledge and then used that to make a God of himself by claiming to know the answer to all sorts of things that he had no direct knowledge of.
Harsh right? I’m just a little salty today. 🙂