Mindfulness.

[Intuition]

Hello, I've been wanting to post here for quite some time, and I'm just now getting around to it. I just finished reviewing my journal from the past few weeks, and I have many things to share.

Mindfulness
First of all, I want to discuss mindfulness. What is mindfulness? I'd like to paste here now a portion of my previous post and writing which is this:
I'd like to, before I get back to my question, write something quickly about mindfulness that I consider insightful. It is as follows:
It would be interesting and helpful to define the term 'mindfulness', because it is something you should strive for at ALL times. I think that 'presence', 'watchfulness', 'self aware', 'conscious' are all similar words to what this word is trying to convey, but it's really just a word, and all of these are just words, which fall short of the reality. What's more important are the practices which give you this quality (the reality which these words attempt to touch at). Because then, you don't have to worry about 'mindful' and 'what it means' cognitively. You don't have to worry much about theory, because if you stay with the sense of the body, or if you observe the thought stream, you are mindful, self aware, conscious, present, watchful or whatever you would like to call it.

Mindfulness and Meditation:
Mindfulness is a quality to be trained. Meditation could also be called mindfulness training. All of the following suttas describe the Buddha's mindfulness training, and how to get and experience this quality of 'mindfulness' so that you know what it is:
Anapanasati Sutta (MN 118) “Mindfulness of the breath”
Kayagata-sati Sutta (MN 119) “Mindfulness of the Body”
Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10) “the Four Paths of Mindfulness”
Maha-satipatthana Sutta (DN 22), “Larger Discourse on the Four Paths of Mindfulness”


Alright, so I really like that post. I want to add a couple of things now. So first of all, we need to decide upon the word we're going to use to describe this quality to be cultivated.

But before that, I would like to list similar words which all try to touch at this.
presence
watchfulness
self aware
conscious

The following are other ways I have seen it described:
being in god's presence (not sure about this one, but I think that some cultures pack it this way)
sati
consciousness without an object
being

The word that I'm going to use, out of all these words - is presence. So when I use the word 'presence' from now on, you will know what I'm talking about. (If you've experienced this)

Ok.

So, now, with that out of the way, I want to talk about presence.

It is something to be sustained 24/7, and it leads to one finding oneself within the 2nd jhana.

How do you do presence?

The first step is to do some sort of presence training exercise (The Buddha has some of these which he suggests. These are linked earlier in this post), but I also would like to add, that these are not the only exercises in the world that can train/ignite presence. I'm just going to list all of them that I can think of right now.

- meditating upon the breath at the tip of the nose
- sustaining awareness of the inner body
- visual meditation upon a kasina
- mantra repetition either inside one's mind or verbally
- observe the thought stream, or as I call it, the contents of the mind
- give your full attention to whatever you are doing
- focus upon anything in the present moment, such as the soles of your feet making contact with the ground

I'd also like to add that I even think reading and writing can help with this, but I included the best exercises above.
So, basically, if you don't know what presence is, doing any of these exercises will teach you what this quality is, and they will train it. This is the first step. Throughout the day, and in meditation, do any of these activities so that you start getting the hang of presence. So that you start to grasp it.
There will be a point, after doing these presence training activities at which you realize that you can 'do' presence directly, without the training wheels (the exercises). I will describe my own progression.


Let's say I'm in a normal human state of consciousness. This is how I would progress:
1. Do any of the presence training exercises, until I start to 'grasp' presence. My favorite is observing the thought stream.
2. This is an intermediate stage. At some point, I sort of 'get' what presence is, and the second step is that when I observe the thought stream, this is just used to 'ignite' presence, and then I sustain presence as long as I can. in any way that I can. Another alternative for this intermediate stages is that I can 'do' presence, but I am able to do it better without lapse with a crutch, such as keeping with me my soles making contact with the ground while I maintain presence.
3. I am able to 'do' presence directly, and I do this 24/7, at all times
4. After doing this for long enough it's not really 'done' anymore. It's become more just of a natural state of being, and you forget how to not do it anymore, and you forget what your life/your state of consciousness was like before this new state of being.
*As a result of this, I at some point realize that there is a pervading silence all around me, that my thoughts are silenced, and there is great momentum to this silence, and I would have to choose to start thinking again in order to exit it, therefore I realize that I am in the altered state of consciousness of the second jhana, as a result of my practice of 24/7 presence.

I hope this helps. If anyone has any questions, please ask. If anyone has any critiques, please tell me.

Now I am at a point where I can arrive at the 2nd jhana consistently. My practice right now is to just stay in the silence. My prediction is that this will lead to either the charisms arising, or some sort of state of *union* or something like that.

My area of investigation right now is the altered state of consciousness of the 2nd jhana, which I am able to arrive at consistently. Once I find myself in this state, I realize that 'doing' presence is cumbersome, or unnecessary. Whether this is because it has saturated in as a state of being or because I am in an altered state of consciousness, I do not know. I'm not really sure what I need to *do* here now. I'm not sure whether I should keep trying to do presence, or if this presence has saturated in as a state of natural being, and that the only thing I should do now is to be in the silence.

[Jhanananda]

Very good work, Intuition.  Now all you need do is sustain the presence in a still  mind; and allow depth to develop, which will take you deep into samadhi, which will develop into the OOBE and beyond from the 5th samadhi on.  At this point your training becomes purely spiritual, which will prepare you for death.

[Intuition]

Very good work, Intuition.  Now all you need do is sustain the presence in a still  mind; and allow depth to develop, which will take you deep into samadhi, which will develop into the OOBE and beyond from the 5th samadhi on.  At this point your training becomes purely spiritual, which will prepare you for death.

Hello Jhanananda, actually, as a matter of fact, I did just this in my meditation last night, the night of the day I wrote the original post of this thread, and I entered what was very clear to me an altered state of consciousness. I think it is the deepest I have ever gone with medtiation. My only objective was to sustain the presence. I sustained it, and there was very clearly a phase when there was a still mind, and I still sustained the presence in this. Then at some point, my body felt like it was sinking...sinking..sinking.. away from me, and there was comfort on levels which are not normal to a normal state of consciousness. Things started to get very weird, and at some point, I decided to close my eyes, and just sustain that presence. And this is when things started getting really, really weird. I seemed to gradually lose a normal awareness of my body, there was some lingering awareness of the sensation of my hands touching eachother that was there in this black void but it was not a normal awareness of this sensation, there was no bodily context for it, no spatial context, or at least the spatial context was messed up, and it was just there in this black void, is the only way I can describe it, and then eventually, this faded, until there was just this presence and this black void, and I essentially forgot that I was a human with a body. It seemed like a distant memory to me, having been a human, with a body. There was only this presence and this black void. Time also dialated. But the main quality was that having been a human and having had a body became some sort of distant memory to me, and it was scary, and I just kept trying to tell myself to let go, let go, let go, trust in god, trust in god, trust in god.

My theory is that I entered into a Samadhi. Into which one, I do not know.

[Jhanananda]

It sounds like you may have made it to the 4th jhana (samadhi).  So, good work.  Keep coming back there, and you will find greater depth.

[Intuition]

Thanks Jhanananda, I was reading some of your samadhi descriptions on GWV, and I actually had arrived at the conclusion that it was the 5th Samadhi? Are you sure it was the 4th jhana?

Also, I thought jhana referred to 1-4 (rupa), and samadhi referred to 5-8 (arupa)?

[Jhanananda]

Thanks Jhanananda, I was reading some of your samadhi descriptions on GWV, and I actually had arrived at the conclusion that it was the 5th Samadhi? Are you sure it was the 4th jhana?

It is possible, except we would expect more detailed discovery of the 3rd and 4th stages of samadhi (jhnana).  Plus more details of an OOBE, which is the 5th samadhi; thus I conclude that you were on the edge of an OOBE, which makes it the 4th jhana/samadhi.

Also, I thought jhana referred to 1-4 (rupa), and samadhi referred to 5-8 (arupa)?

To be more precise, jhana refers to the first four stages of samadhi, which are also called rupa-samadhi.  The remaining for stages of samadhi are referred to immaterial attainments or immaterial samadhi (arupa-samadhi).  They are also known as 'ayatana' in the suttas.