The Buddha on Jhana

I said to myself: “These painful austerities have not led to any transcendent states, any knowledge or vision able to ennoble one. Could there be another way?”

Then I recalled: “Once, while my father the Sakiyan was at work, I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree. Untroubled by sensual desires or unskillful ideas, I entered into and dwelled in the first meditation, which is accompanied by thought and reflection, by rapture and well-being born of solitude. Could that be the way?”

Recalling this, I realized: “Yes, this is the way. Why do I fear a well-being that has nothing to do with sensual desire or unskillful ideas? There is no reason to fear that well-being. Yet it is hard to experience it with a body so emaciated. Why don’t I eat some solid food?” So I ate some boiled rice and junket.

***

Imagine a skilled bath attendant or his apprentice who pours soap powder into a metal basin, sprinkles it with water, and kneads it into a ball, so that the ball of soap is pervaded, encompassed, and suffused with moisture inside and out, yet with no seepage. So the meditator suffuses her body with the rapture and well-being born of solitude, so that no part of her body is not suffused by that rapture and well-being. 

Imagine a deep lake whose waters well up from below. It has no inlets for streams from east, from west, from north, from south, nor is it refilled by timely showers of rain. Yet a current of cool water, welling up from within the lake, suffuses the entire body of water, so no part of it is not suffused with cool water. So the meditator suffuses her body with the rapture and well-being born of collectedness, so that no part of her body is not suffused by that rapture and well-being.

Imagine ponds of blue, red, and white lotus flowers that germinated, grew up in, and never rise above the surfaces of those ponds. Such plants thrive underwater. From their tips to their roots they are suffused with cool water, so that no part of them is not suffused with it. So the meditator suffuses her body with well-being devoid of rapture, so that no part of her body is not suffused by that well-being. 

Imagine a seated person covered from head to foot by a white cloth, so that no part of her body is untouched by that white cloth. So the meditator sits suffusing her body with a pure bright mind, so that no part of her body is not suffused by that pure bright mind. 

Imagine a fine hexagonal crystal, polished, shining, transparent, flawless, strung on a blue, yellow, red, white, or colorless thread. A person with keen sight, talking it in her hand, would reflect: “Here is a fine hexagonal crystal, strung on a blue, yellow, red, white, or colorless thread.” So when her mind is collected, pure and bright, the practitioner directs and inclines it to knowing and seeing. She understands: “This is my body, having physical form, composed of four elements, born of father and mother, nourished with rice and broth, impermanent, liable to be broken and destroyed, and this is my consciousness, supported by and bound up with it.” 

***

Just as the Ganga slants, slopes, and inclines toward the east, so too a practitioner who develops and cultivates the four meditations slants, slopes, and inclines toward nirvana. 

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Selected passages from the Pali canon. Excerpted from The Art of Solitude, by Stephen Batchelor, copyright © 2020 Stephen Batchelor, reprinted with permission of Yale University Press.