There are a couple of ways to look at this. A couple of situations are ideal for reaching the Deep Jhanas. 1. Meditators who have followed a simple practice of meditating on the breath or the feeling of breath at the nose can be ideal candidates. 2. Advanced meditators who have tried for decades and just never been able to put together a solid 100% focus on the breath. In both of these circumstances, Jhana can be reached with some exceptional effort.
I’ve started saying ‘exceptional effort’ to characterize what is needed to enter the Deep Jhanas. Though I often say how quickly it came for me, I don’t really mean that there were these huge gains every time I sat down for the first 3-4 months. Gains were super subtle at first. Sometimes they went unnoticed for a while until I really looked at it.
Saying there are 2 ideal candidates to reach Deep Jhana isn’t meant to throw everyone else off the path. It’s just that I think people in these two situations have the best chance of reaching Deep Jhana for 2 different reasons – explained below.
The Beginner
Meditators who have either never meditated, or who have meditated on the breath just following a simple practice and without getting sucked into the whole social aspect of meditation and reading dozens of books about techniques and what should happen according to Buddhism or some other practice, have a better chance than others to reach the Deep Jhana states of mind.
I say that because people with a certain naivety toward the practice have not filled their heads with the nonsense of Buddhism yet. Someone who learned to practice recently or even years ago is a good candidate for Deep Jhana because they have a desire to practice, and they’re looking for a simple method that isn’t clouded by many teachers’ and traditions’ points of view.
It’s ideal if someone doesn’t have any idea about all the Buddhist dogma that clouds their path. It’s better if they haven’t spent years learning one method then switched to another method, then another, another, and just one more.
Starting with a sort of fresh state – a tabula rosa – can be ideal for this practice.
It certainly doesn’t mean success will be had and Deep Jhana is experienced, but in my mind it does have some real advantages.
A beginner in this stage can learn to move through the path of the Deep Jhanas easier than someone with years or decades of experience.
That said, some of these people can also experience Deep Jhana but there are some difficult obstacles.
The Monk, or the Lifelong Learner
A person who has spent a lifetime meditating under various systems and never really finding success – even monks – can be also in a relatively ideal place to eventually reach the Deep Jhanas.
The positive thing they have going for them is effort over time. People who actually make the effort to meditate, even when alone and in an empty house, may reach the Deep Jhanas because they have some level of endurance. Someone who has tried over decades, I mean really tried, is someone who can make great progress in the Deep Jhanas. There are some problems to overcome, but it’s quite possible.
Here in Thailand, Western monks for many years have told me they haven’t been able to reach even the light Jhanas. To be honest, it seems like they’ve been confused by learning from different systems over the years or getting stuck in one system and not understanding what the problem is with their lack of progress.
I’ve said many times here, I don’t have any idea what the Light Jhanas even are. I’ve never experienced them and never tried. It just wasn’t something that happened for me, so I never went in that direction.
If you are looking to enter the Light Jhanas, there are hundreds of people who will tell you how to do it. Some of them know what they’re talking about, and others are merely repeating some process they heard from someone else. There are many posers in the space who seem to be desperate for attention and admiration(?). They play this role of being the all-knowing meditation teacher and yet they’ve never experienced any sort of meaningful LIght or Deep Jhana.
These people are everywhere and I don’t know how to help you avoid them. Please just know they exist and are around every corner.
Problems Advanced Meditators Have with Entering Deep Jhanas
A meditator in an ideal state for learning the deep Jhanas is someone who maybe has spent years learning the Buddhist system or following some teacher’s system within Buddhism, and who is disillusioned with it. A person who realizes after say a decade of being on their path and not really attaining even total concentration on the breath or anything like first Janna has a certain motivation to break through their stumbling blocks.
The major problem is a Catch-22.
Buddhism sets up Jhana as one of the ultimate attainments for meditation practice. For western monks, it is seen as the holy Grail or at least the ideal place to be in order to foster insights that are facilitated by the Jhana states of mind.
When a monk or anyone has this idea that Jhana is the ultimate short-term attainment, they focus on that and anxiously await progress toward that goal.
As one reaches Samadhi – full concentration on the feeling of the breath at the nose – learned practitioners already know they are very close to Jhana experiences. Emotion ramps up. Talk about it ramps up. The quest to learn more about it from people and books and videos – ramps up.
There is excitement that builds around the topic. The anticipation builds inside the mind. It cannot help but build up.
All of this emotion produced by the anticipation and expectation of mind-blowing states of mind just around the corner lead to an absolute dead end.
Jhana just isn’t there when a person is emotional about reaching it. BUddhists say grasping at Jhana – wanting it – desiring it – expecting it – leads to nothing. It just won’t be available to the mind in those states. Even the most subtle of those states.
After full concentration on the breath has been attained, a person may follow the breath with 100% focus and lucidity for any number of breaths.
The ability to think, that existed just prior to entering this hyper-focused state, has been diminished. If one is truly focused on the sensation of the breath entering and exiting the nose at a specific point, there is no real thought possible. The only focus is the breath. It feels like a sort of powerful state – for lack of better words to describe it. It feels ‘locked-in.’
There are no thoughts of Jhana arriving soon in this state. There is no desire for it. There is no grasping for it. The rock-solid concentration on the tiny spot where you feel the breath is the ONLY thing in the mind.
The next step in the process to reach Deep Jhana is just to let go of the focus on the breath.
Focus on nothing.
Sit in stillness. Emptiness.
At any time you can direct the mind back to focusing on the breath very easily, and instantly, and you can play with that if you want. Focusing on the breath, then sitting in emptiness, and going back and forth with it. No matter. Experimentation is always something you can do.
Eventually, sit in stillness focusing on nothing for an extended period.
In that session, or another one like it, a nimitta as Buddhists call it, arises.
It’s a mind sign.
The mind creates something to look at. To feel.
Some people see something in their mind like a light. A ball. A moon. A sphere. A pyramid. Some geometric figure. Some other figure. Some random shape. Whatever. Something pops up in the mind that you can see.
Or, through one of the other senses.
For me, I’ve said often that my main mind sign was a tingling in the hands. For many sessions I’d just sit in that empty mind state and yet aware that the hands were tingling. I wouldn’t focus on it though. Just sit in nothingness.
Eventually at some point I focused on the tingling hands. The feeling grew. It encompassed the entire body slowly – spreading over all surfaces.
The same happens with the light or object in your mind. You focus on it and it grows to encompass your entire minds-eye. You seem to move into it. You seem to merge with it. You become one with it, not separate from it. You BECOME it. You are locked in the present moment of the experience without any thought or concern about the past or future. It’s a very present-moment state of mind.
At some point you may become aware of your breath going on. You can focus on it a bit if you try. It’s background though. It isn’t important and you shift your attention to this being in the present moment without a body, just sitting there in nothingness and feeling at peace as part of all that exists. You feel at one with the world, but you don’t say that in your mind. It’s the feeling of it. You’ll say it later when trying to describe the state. “It felt like I merged with the universe or was not a separate consciousness…”
At some point, in this experience you may feel some sort of good feeling. Some positive thing. You may feel some joy. Happiness. Bliss.
At this point, advanced meditators know, Jhana is coming. ‘I’m almost there!’
With the emotional feeling of joy – however subtle – also comes the ability to know what is coming next. It has been drilled into the mind through Buddhist practice for years in some people and the anticipation builds. Excitement can’t help but be felt as one anticipates what is COMING NEXT.
Well, the problem is, it’s too late because nothing is coming next. The first Jhana isn’t coming because you’re anticipating it. You’re grasping for it. You WANT it.
This happens many, MANY times to monks. Their process for leading up to this point may be different – it is almost always different because they are typically moving through a process that will put them in a Light Jhana if successful, not a Deep Jhana.
But the Deep Jhanas are certainly not coming with this emotional anticipation.
Anyway, to overcome this, monks can follow steps to reach the Deep Jhanas which has the effect of lessening the mind’s ability to want, desire, and grasp in that pivotal state where Jhana is just on the horizon.
There are some specific exercises I can teach that will help advanced meditators downplay the coming of the Deep Jhanas. I learned these over time and they were instrumental in being able to slide into the Deep Jhannic states.
So, to clarify, a monk or very advanced meditator who has tried for years to reach Jhana can reach the Deep Jhanas with a specific practice that has nothing to do with the Light Jhanas.
And with specific steps that dumbs-down the ability of the emotional mind to create desire/grasping.
And with specific tips to reduce Jhana’s importance in the mind.
Which kind of meditator has the best chance to reach the Deep Jhanas?
A person who:
- is highly motivated to practice daily for 20 minutes or so for 6 months, a year, two or three years
- doesn’t fill the mind with information about the meditative process from many teachers/friends
- doesn’t even understand what the Jhanas are
- can throw away all the superstitious nonsense Buddhism teaches about who can and can’t reach Jhana and aranthood
- doesn’t have major psychological hang ups or factors that prevent them from complete silence and 100% focused mind
No matter your background, you can also reach the Deep Jhanas with the right effort and process.
Why not schedule an hour coaching call to talk about your practice and see what might be some of the stumbling blocks that are in place and blocking your progress?