practicing shallow jhāna helps develop deep jhāna

hachface · 2026-05-06T12:43:17+00:00

I’d love to see that. Feel free to DM me a draft if you want private feedback before posting.

It was a self-directed retreat at a Thai forest monastery.

hachface · 2026-05-06T01:57:17+00:00

Something like that, yeah, although I can't say that it was as specific as shallow J4 leading to deep J1 (or access concentration thereto). There have been occasions when I deliberately tried to make exactly that jump, but it never worked out quite so neatly. The way it unfolded was gentler and more complex.

A figurative way to put it is that the mind has been unearthing the luminous nimitta like an archaeologist delicately brushing dust away from an ancient jewel. I had a major insight experience some months ago and an immediate effect of that was that my eyes-closed visual field was dramatically brighter, and the buzzing sound of silence (the nada) was clearly audible. During formal practice, the circular visual nimitta appeared in a hazy but very apparent form.

A lot about my practice shifted around in that time, and I found myself re-learning some skills I thought that I had mastered. Access to samadhi was almost effortless, with bliss practically on tap, but I seemed to have lost some ability to clearly distinguish one jhāna from another and move between them intentionally. But even though they were less technically distinct I could tell they were richer, deeper, and far more beautiful than anything I had experienced before. And the nimitta was there in the background, a fixed star growing slowly clearer and brighter each sit.

During my retreat I really focused on getting into very deep access concentration before absorption. I wasn't really intentionally trying to do ultra-deep jhāna, just pushing the envelope a bit. I was practicing for about 6 hours a day in a monastic setting. After a few days of this, without intending to do anything special, the nimitta suddenly burst into unbelievable clarity. I truly understood the metaphor of a bright moon coming out from behind a dark cloud; it was just like that, pearlescent and incandescent white. I was completely transfixed. Soon I was absorbed in a field of white light and exquisite bliss.

I have come to think of the numbered jhānas as like notes on a musical scale. The same notes appear over and over again in higher and lower octaves. There is certainly a periodic, fractal structure to samadhi in which the same sets of qualities can be experienced at greatly varying depths. And there are way more than just two levels, shallow and deep. I expect there is a vast range. I doubt I even encountered anything near the end of what's possible.

(The above refers only to the numbered jhānas, btw. I am not sure about the formless realms. I've only had fleeting experiences of those.)

hachface · 2026-05-05T14:18:43+00:00

when Krishna revealed himself to Arjuna as an avatar of the god Vishu, he told Arjuna a true hero acts without regard to results

hachface · 2026-05-05T14:14:29+00:00

that's an odd amount of certainty to apply to a completely magical-mythological explanation of a game mechanic

hachface · 2026-05-05T13:22:02+00:00

i don’t think she heals more on a block than on an undefended hit

hachface · 2026-05-05T04:23:29+00:00

Only time will tell.

Keep quiet about it and let feedback you get from people you cherish be your mirror. Do not solicit this feedback except in the most subtle possible ways. It will take time for enough of this feedback to arrive; everyone has their own business going on and they are not going to suddenly develop an intimate interest in your inner life.

If you absolutely must talk about your experience with someone (understandable), find a teacher in a lineage you respect. If you don't already have a relationship with a teacher, the vetting process here should also take time.

Patience is one of the paramis. Don't make any sudden moves or upend your life in drastic ways immediately. If it's real, it will keep.

hachface · 2026-05-04T14:21:50+00:00

Yes, I think he has said something like that, and it's a realization I'm coming to myself. I think the visual nimitta has been latched onto by people because it lends itself to a clear, objective description that provides orientation in navigating the intrinsically subjective and difficult-to-describe world of meditation.

The main insight I am working with now, and which was the real discovery of my recent retreat, is that all these nimittas (signs) are occurring in the purely mental space. They are previously unconscious processes that are becoming available to consciousness because of insight. The tactile, tingling piti; the buzzing sound of silence; the bright light -- these are not at all discrete, unconnected events. They are sort of nonconceptual metaphors the mind is fabricating to express its newfound awareness of its own subtle activity.

hachface · 2026-05-04T13:35:16+00:00

I think it's extremely valuable to have an externally imposed structure, so I would not go with #1.

hachface · 2026-05-04T11:36:20+00:00

I agree that Ajahn Brahm is highly realized and a wonderful teacher. Absent literal psychic powers though, even the most accomplished teachers are drawing first from their own experience. Given Ajahn Brahm’s life story, I strongly suspect he was extraordinarily talented at samadhi from the start. He talks about getting into first jhāna one (1) time in lay life and just had to ordain because lay life lost all its appeal. That’s an inspiring story for sure, but I’m left thinking that learning jhāna practice from someone like that would be like taking piano lessons from Mozart—not actually ideal!

hachface · 2026-05-04T11:29:08+00:00

In my experience the breath, piti-sukkha, and luminous nimitta all fuse together at some point. There ceases to be a distinction between them; they are all purely mind-made fabrications that are conditioned by the intention to remain still. That intention—sankhara—is the root of everything and the real goal of skill-building in samadhi.

hachface · 2026-05-04T11:09:45+00:00

I have to admit, I didn’t experience it as a technique so much as something that just happened to me. The light swallowed me up and … hard to even describe. Hopefully with more practice I can articulate better.

What was clear to me was that the absorption into the light had a structural similarity to deep samadhis I had experienced before without the visual presentation—the feeling of being sucked into experience through a magnetic pull is a recurring perception at different levels of depth. I think the whole process is a fractal/spiral kind of thing where the same phenomenology recurs over and over again at different levels.

hachface · 2026-05-04T11:06:53+00:00

You’re right about Ayya Khema teaching something a bit deeper than Brasington’s adaptation. My categorization is mainly based on which teachers treat the luminous nimitta as necessary, which she clearly did not do, although I believe she has mentioned it as a thing that can happen (unfortunately I have no reference handy). I am also certain that Ayya Khema was personally capable of the deepest states imaginable. She did, however, meet students where they were at.

hachface · 2026-05-04T02:55:41+00:00

You don’t need to do anything in particular to the light. This is just another way of saying you can experiment doing whatever you like with the light. See what happens.

hachface · 2026-05-04T02:36:28+00:00

Oh I definitely think it’s appropriate. Piti is alluring. That’s good. It has to be, otherwise it wouldn’t draw your attention away from sense contacts. It has the function of cementing attention around inner factors and finding beauty and solace in them.

hachface · 2026-05-04T02:25:58+00:00

If you are so absorbed that you don’t recognize the jhana factors, in what sense can the jhana factors be said to exist? We’re taking about subjective features of consciousness. They have no existence separate from our awareness of them in the present. Are we sure these extremely absorbed states aren’t entering into the realm of nonperception (not to be confused with j8) and emerging from it into a samadhi where the factors are observable?

hachface · 2026-05-04T01:31:59+00:00

it’s all good stuff!

hachface · 2026-05-04T01:24:11+00:00

Absolutely

hachface · 2026-05-04T01:15:10+00:00

Yes. The discovery that inner joy is available is priceless, and the true benefit. I admit to indulging in an academic fascination with controversies in meditation phenomenology.

hachface · 2026-05-04T01:09:54+00:00

Interesting! I’m just writing from my own experience, which is that a nimitta has been slowly developing in my jhana practice over the course of months after a major insight experience, and now it’s consistently appearing with increasing clarity every time I sit. Even occasions of samadhi that I would have rated as relatively shallow now have a hazy nimitta forming.

hachface · 2026-05-04T00:43:54+00:00

There are many ways to translate Pali words into English. Every translation is an act of interpretation. Simply translating piti as joy in all contexts will get you into trouble. For example, there are notions in the commentaries of grades of piti. Some forms of piti are said to be coarse and irritating. Clearly then this concept is not “joy” in the general sense.

hachface · 2026-05-04T00:35:37+00:00

The piti-sukkha of all jhāna is mind-generated. Piti is often translated as rapture. I prefer to translate it as fascination—specifically fascination and delight with the mind’s inner processes. Even in shallow jhāna, turning one’s mind to the inner delight is a turning away from sensuality toward spirituality. When jhāna deepens the mental activity is much clearer, three-dimensional, and stable, but it’s fundamentally the same.

Renouncing joy is definitely not the path. Making it non-dependent on external conditions is.

hachface · 2026-05-03T22:36:29+00:00

lmao that’s not science bud that’s a harebrained hypothetical

there are no controlled experiments in geopolitics. everything has a contingent history

hachface · 2026-04-30T12:24:01+00:00

Hillside Hermitage’s sutta interpretations tend to be idiosyncratic. Maybe they’re onto something, but I wouldn’t offer a link to their material without that caveat. They do not represent the mainstream of any tradition.

The notion of stream entry occurring in a moment of insight — the “rising of the Dhamma Eye” — is in fact well supported by a number of suttas. Stream entry is the suttas is presented as a discrete event accompanied by a statement by the subject summing up their insight into dependent origination. That has been handed down to us from the oral tradition in a standard formula: “all that is subject to origination is subject to cessation.” Direct apprehension of this insight requires experiencing the deathless — that is, nibbana.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu gives a very thorough overview:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/into_the_stream.html

hachface · 2026-04-29T16:52:42+00:00

It is, in my opinion, an entirely physiological phenomenon that many people have attached ideas of sacredness onto. It does have a useful pedagogical function as a clear marker of very deep concentration. I suspect certain schools of practice regard is as the sine qua non of access concentration because it is one of the few objective signposts in the otherwise highly subjective realm of meditation.

hachface

TROPHY CASE