Day 3 Enlightenment Factors & Jhana- Japan Retreat Dec 2023

Today we'll talk about enlightenment factors, so you have an understanding of what's going on when you're doing the practice. There are seven enlightenment factors. These are factors of awakening, also known as awakening factors. So there's mindfulness, there's investigation of states, energy, there's joy, there's tranquility, there's collectedness, and there is equanimity. Mindfulness. When we talk about mindfulness, it is essentially remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. That is the definition that our teacher Bhante Vimalaramsi has provided. Remembering to observe attention moves from one object to the other. Mindfulness comes from the word sati, and sati means to remember, to recollect. Another way of looking at mindfulness is that it is the ability to observe the mind in whatever process is going on.

So in other words, being aware of awareness itself, or mind being aware of itself. Yesterday, we talked a little bit about metacognition. That is the cognition of cognition. So understanding where your mind is moving and not being caught up in it, just observing. So in the suttas, there are four foundations of mindfulness. You have mindfulness of body, mindfulness of feeling, mindfulness of mind, and mindfulness of mind objects. Now the way it's been categorized makes it seem like you have to first be aware of body, then you have to be aware of feelings, then you have to be aware of mind, then you have to be aware of mind objects. But that's not the case. By showing the most apparent, which is the body, all the way down to the subtlest, which is the mind phenomena or mind objects.

But in reality, when you are meditating, you are observing or aware of all four foundations, one way or the other. They are interconnected. They are interwoven in the practice. So mindfulness of body or mindfulness of feeling, mindfulness of mind or mindfulness of mind objects happens when you are doing the metta practice. When you are staying with loving kindness in your heart, first you are aware of what is happening in the body. Is there a sensation in the body? There's a sensation. Sensation itself is the feeling, the feeling of loving kindness to it. Is the mind having craving or is the mind free of craving? Is the mind distracted or is the mind aware? Is the mind contracted or is the mind expanded?

Is the mind surpassed or unsurpassed? And so on. So whenever you notice tightness or tension in the body, what is that? That's mindfulness of the body. Whenever you notice that there is metta present, what is that? That is mindfulness of a mind object. When you notice that there is a hindrance present while you are meditating, and all of a sudden there is sensual craving that arises, what is that? That is mindfulness of a mind object. Or when you notice that you have let go of the object and you've come back, that is also mindfulness of the mind. Mind was contracted, mind was distracted; now mind is free of that distraction, now mind is expanded. Now mind is collected rather than uncollected.

So mindfulness is not something that you can do. Mindfulness is something that you relax into. Mindfulness is a quality of the mind, a process of the mind that happens as a result of being present. That is why when you talk about mindfulness as sati, there is linked to that word sampajanna. Sati, sampajanna. Sati is the mindfulness. Sampajanna is understanding or comprehension. Sampajanna means the awareness of the arising and passing away of phenomena, or the awareness and understanding of dependent origination. But for practical purposes, the way to understand sampajanna is when you are walking, you know you're walking; when you are eating, you know you're eating. What does that all mean basically? Mind itself or mind objects.

So the way to start mindfulness, or to bring up mindfulness, is to relax into the moment and be open. Again, the theme here is to take refuge in the moment, to surrender to the moment, to have that presence of mind to be aware of what's going on. That's it. Everything else will start to build upon it and take care of itself. So from this mindfulness it leads to what's known as dhamma vichaya, which is usually translated as investigation of states. The word investigation is a very tricky translation, because it sounds like it's something that you have to do. You have to think about these awakening factors as qualities of mind. Indeed, when we talk about mindfulness of mind objects or mindfulness of phenomena, included in that is the list of the seven awakening factors.

You have the four noble truths, you have the five hindrances, and you have the seven awakening factors. They are just phenomena that are happening in the mind. It's not something that you can intend to bring up. They happen naturally, and they are happening naturally every time your mind remains mindful. Mindfulness gets the ball rolling. And what gets the ball rolling for mindfulness? Present moment awareness. Being here now. Sampajanna. So what is investigation of states? Antidote for doubt or confusion. Remember yesterday we talked about doubt as being the inability to recognize what is wholesome and what is unwholesome. In other words, being confused about what state of mind the mind is in currently. That's it. So investigation, how do you open yourself up to investigation?

The mindfulness of what is present. And then C, was there tension there, or was the mind in a wholesome state? Was there spaciousness there, or was the mind contracted? Just in observing and knowing this, you are already having investigation. Investigation here can mean understanding, or it can mean comprehension, just like sampajanna, or it can mean the reflection of something. Not to reflect, but to see the reflection of your own mind. In other words, what is the mind reflecting to you as the observer? What is the mind showing you as the observer? What are the qualities present in the mind? So being open to the mind will allow you to have this investigation. Analyzing, it's not about thinking, it's not about exploring; it's about being open and present to what the mind is reflecting to you and understanding what is being reflected, so then you can make adjustments. And the making of those adjustments is what balances the energy, or means literally the strength of something, the energy of something, the power of something.

So here you are balancing the mind. So this energy can be lax, which can lead to sloth and torpor, or this energy can be too much, which can lead to restlessness and remorse. But every time you relax and you let go, you're coming back to an aligned or balanced energy. Relaxing doesn't mean that you loosen only. Relaxing can also mean that you come into a balanced energy. So when we recognize that the mind was distracted or that a hindrance arose, we have started the mindfulness process. As soon as you recognize something, that in itself is mindfulness. Mindfulness of what? Mindfulness of that hindrance. Mindfulness of mind phenomena. Mindfulness of mind, and so on. And knowing that you are distracted.

Knowing that you have a hindrance in mind, that is the investigation of states. So once you recognize, you've already taken care of mindfulness and investigation of states. Once you relax, what that means is when you relax, you just let go of the distraction. And you do a full sweep of relaxing throughout the system. And that balances the energy. If there's tightness somewhere, loosen up that tightness. If something is too lax elsewhere, it will start to bring up more balance there. That's the idea of relax. This is what's known as passaddhi, or tranquility. So when you relax, what is happening? As I mentioned yesterday, when you relax, you experience the mundane form of nibbana. Mind is very spacious.

Mind is very clear. Mind is without any kind of conditions. It is unconditioned in that moment, as a result of which you experience joy in the form of smiling. So now we have mindfulness, which leads to investigation of states. Then we have investigation of states, which leads to energy. And that energy then leads to joy, and then that joy leads to tranquility. But I said that the recognize leads to relax, relax leads to re-smile. So here what we're saying is the tranquility leads to joy, and that's fine. When your mind is tranquil, you are naturally joyful. Now the word joy can denote all kinds of things, like an exuberant state of being, a state of being that is filled with a lot of excitement, and so on.

But when we say joy, we're really talking about being uplifted. Having a mind that is sharp and clear and pleasant. That's enough. This piti that people talk about sometimes can be experienced as heat in the body. It can be experienced as energy in the body. It can be experienced as vibrations in the body. Just emanations or manifestations of this piti. The true understanding of piti is that the mind is uplifted, and that's all that you need to know. The mind is uplifted in a happy state, in a state that is glad, in a state that is slightly energized; it doesn't need to be extremely exuberant. So coming back to my point, when you have tranquility, your mind is naturally uplifted.

When you have joy, is naturally relaxed. So when you come back to the smile, you bring up that joy. And then when you come back to your object, what happens? You have what's known as collectedness. That joy leads to tranquility. That tranquility leads to collectedness. This word collectedness comes from the word samadhi. Samadhi. So what does samadhi actually mean? Sama means the same. It's balanced. It's even. And dhi is the short form for buddhi. Buddhi means the mind, the intellect. So samadhi means that the mind is at balance, collected. The mind is composed. So one of the images that I provide to understand collectedness is you can imagine that your object of meditation is a planet, and that your attention is the satellite that moves around the object, moves around the planet.

So it's not becoming one with the planet. If you become too concentrated, if you become too focused, what happens? The satellite gets into the gravitational field of the planet a little too closely, and then it crash lands into the planet. Not a good idea. If the collectedness is too loose, then the satellite starts to drift away. There's not enough attention, which means there can be sloth and torpor. So how do you deal with it? You send somebody there to make sure that it goes back into orbit. In this case, you use right effort. You use right effort in both cases. If the satellite is too close, meaning you're too focused, you loosen up a little bit using right effort.

If the satellite drifts away, which means the attention is too loose, use the four Rs to come back. So this collectedness is related to what's known as Ekagata. Ekagata is a unified mind. Ekagata is usually or traditionally translated as one-pointedness. But if you say one-pointedness, what we're saying is it feels like the mind's attention is like a laser that pinpoints only one location, at the object. This is what happens when you have the state of absorption, where the mind feels like it has become one with the object of meditation. So the metta feels like you have become metta personified, or you have become passion personified. But in doing so, you suppress everything else that's happening in the mind.

So you have too much collectedness. Now here's an interesting thing. You can have too much of any of the awakening factors except for mindfulness. You can never have enough of mindfulness. But the other six, you can have too much of. And that's where the balancing act takes place. Usually this balancing act will happen when you are in quiet mind. It might happen before that, but it can happen when you are in quiet mind as well. So this collectedness leads to equanimity. So what is this equanimity? Equanimity comes from the word upekkha, right? And upekkha means not to take sides.

It means to be balanced in your approach. So another word for equanimity in Pali is Yathabhuta Nanadassana, which means Yathabhuta means reality, Nana means knowledge, and Dassana means vision. So the knowledge and vision of things as they are, this is true equanimity: seeing things as they are without getting caught up in them. If it's very pleasant, the mind says, okay, it's pleasant, but it doesn't get caught up in it. It doesn't say, I want more of it, or it doesn't have any kind of craving, where if it goes away, how does the mind feel? If it's unpleasant, the mind doesn't get caught up in that and say, I don't like this, and push it

away, or it doesn't have any disturbance. It just is. Okay, it's an unpleasant feeling. So this equanimity is part and parcel of the entire process of right effort, because the equanimity is an underlying theme. It's a string, a thread, that goes through each of the other factors and goes through each of the steps of the four Rs. Because without equanimity your mind will get caught up in the hindrance. It will want to push that hindrance, will want to fight that hindrance, will want to do something with that hindrance except for letting it go. But if there is equanimity and the ability to say, oh, here is a hindrance present, it's just a hindrance, that is recognizing, then you're able to let go and relax, then you're able to smile, then you're able to come back to your object of meditation, as a result of which your equanimity deepens, stronger and stronger.

So when we look at the enlightenment factors, they lead into each other. Mindfulness leads to investigation of states. Investigation of states leads to energy. Energy leads to joy. Joy leads to tranquility. Tranquility leads to collectedness. And collectedness leads to equanimity. That is the linear approach of understanding the awakening factors. But also, there is a circular way of looking at it. That is to say, once you have equanimity, that equanimity deepens the next arising of mindfulness. And then that mindfulness deepens the level of investigation. That investigation deepens the level of balance in energy. That balance deepens the level of joy, or being uplifted. That joy or being uplifted deepens the level of tranquility.

And that tranquility deepens the level of collectedness. This is why, when you get to the fourth jhana, it says that the purity of mindfulness due to equanimity is the highlight of the fourth jhana. If you read in the suttas, this is what it says: mindfulness due to equanimity. And the reason is because the enlightenment factors have been circling through as your mind becomes further and further collected, as your mind gets more and more collected around its object of meditation. So how do we balance the enlightenment factors? How do we bring them into balance? Usually, when the enlightenment factors are in balance, there's nothing to do. Allow things to be as they are. But sometimes you will notice that things can be out of whack, right?

They can be out of balance. Sometimes there's sloth and torpor, which means there might be too much tranquility going on, too much collectedness going on, too much equanimity going on. So what do you do? First, you need the mindfulness to recognize that there's sloth and torpor. Okay, here is sloth and torpor. And then you need the energy and the joy to say, I'm going to take a little bit more interest in my object of meditation. That is how you balance the energy. If there is too much restlessness going on, then what that means is the active factors of the enlightenment factors are too much. What does that mean? There's too much investigation of states going on.

There's too much joy going on. There's too much energy going on. So how do you balance it? Bring in more collectedness. Bring in more tranquility. Bring in more collectedness. Bring in more equanimity. So first you need the mindfulness to recognize, here is restlessness. Here is remorse. So I recognize that that's there. I'm going to relax. I'm going to tranquilize. I'm going to let go. I'm going to loosen a little bit. I'm going to take a step back a little bit. And I'm going to let the mind collect naturally. The thing about these processes is that when you are working at the level of mind, they're happening very subtly. So you don't need to make large steps.

Micro steps are enough. If you need to take a little bit more, do a little bit more, but you don't need to do as much. So put a drop in, notice the change in the mind. Okay, if there's not enough change, put another drop in and then notice the change. You don't need to say, okay, now I have a lot of sloth and torpor, so I'm going to bring in as much interest as I can. I'm going to bring in as much energy as I can. What's going to happen? Slingshot from sloth and torpor down up to restlessness. And then when you have restlessness, you're going to say, okay, I'm going to relax. What's going to happen?

You're going to slingshot from the restlessness to sloth and torpor. And all you're going to do is play a ping-pong match with yourself. That's it. Go back and forth, back and forth. So, small incremental steps to notice how the gauge starts to balance itself out. And then you have true north. And how does that feel? As I said yesterday, it feels like everything is in flow. The mind's awareness isn't going anywhere. It is steady. It's solid as a rock, but it is not tight. Meaning it's not absorbed. It remains unshakable. And that's all you need to do. So once you have this understanding of the enlightenment factors, you don't need to apply them in a way that's like, okay, now I need to bring up tranquility.

Now I need to bring up joy. You just start with present moment awareness. See what's going on in your mind. Notice any tightness and tension. Because when you do that body scan before you sit down, when you do that body scan, you're noticing if there's any tightness and tension. And therefore, you're already bringing in mindfulness. You're already bringing in sampajanna, or clear comprehension. And as a result, now that you have present moment awareness, you can relax and then collect your mind around an object, whether it's metta to yourself or to the spiritual friend, sending metta out in different directions, or equanimity, or whatever it might be. Once you start with that, then just keep going and make small adjustments wherever you need.

Deepen in its collectedness, it starts to get into jhana. The first jhana, the second jhana, the third jhana, the fourth jhana. Now when we talk about these jhanic states, what they are are essentially levels of understanding, levels of cessation. So in the first jhana we have what is known as being secluded from unwholesome states of mind, quite secluded from sensual pleasures. So when we say quite secluded from sensual pleasures, what we're talking about is now the mind is resting in itself. You have closed your eyes. You have taken your attention away from what's going on outside in terms of sounds. And you have redirected your mind, withdrawn your mind into itself. This is being quite secluded from sensual pleasures.

Unwholesome states of mind. This means that your mind is free from any kind of hindrance, free from any kind of sensual desire, free from any kind of restlessness, free from sloth and torpor, free from aversion, free from any kind of doubt. Now that it is withdrawn and secluded from those hindrances, there is the thinking and examining thought, the vitakka and the vicara. The vitakka is the placing of the intention on an object. So, using verbal statements like, may I be happy, may I be well, or bringing up an image that makes you happy, or gratitude, or a wholesome memory, or whatever it might be. That's the vitakka, the ignition. You only need to do it one time, and then the placing of the mind and resting on the feeling of the object, or compassion, or whatever, is the vicara, the examining thought.

What that means is you are sustaining your awareness or your attention on the metta, as a result of which there is piti and sukha, or joy and comfort, born of seclusion. In other words, when you let go of the hindrance, you find a certain sense of relief. And that relief from that hindrance brings you into that naturally joyful state. It's just uplifted. It's celebratory, like, oh, I am free of this hindrance. And so there is the piti and the sukha born of seclusion. Once you get into the second jhana, you let go of any of the images. You let go of any of the verbalizing. You let go of any of the memories.

You let go of any of the words of gratitude or whatever. And now your mind is in a self-confident state. It's aware that, okay, things are flowing. There is clarity here. There is no need to place the mind anywhere. It is remaining on the object. I don't have to do much. It's almost like your mind is on autopilot. That is the cessation of hindrances in the first jhana, and then the cessation of the vitakka and vicara in the second jhana, but the piti and the sukha, the joy and comfort, are born of collectedness, where the mind is further composed around its object of meditation. And so there's a deepening of joy, there's a deepening of sukha or comfort. And so the mind settles in even further. After a while, as your mind is in this, the joy starts to fade away. Right? It doesn't mean that it's no longer uplifted, but any sense of excited or exuberant joy passes away into the third jhana. And so the third jhana is the cessation of any kind of piti. There is still sukha. There are great degrees of equanimity here in the mind.

And what that means for the body is that it starts to become different in terms of the way it's experienced in the meditation. Sometimes it feels like the body is grounded to its seat or to its cushion. The mind is very composed and the body feels maybe heavy or dense. It's just like it's secure. Other times, or for some other people, the body feels expansive and light and spacious. Or sometimes you even lose awareness of the body. It feels like the body has disappeared. And there is only the feeling of the hands in there. And that's it. And that's okay. So when you feel this expansion or this groundedness, this is a highlight of the third jhana.

Eventually, when you get into the fourth jhana, as I said, the signature is that it is the purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. At this point, there are deep levels of equanimity, deep levels of tranquility, deep levels of peace. So what fades away is sukha. Not that you no longer feel comfortable, not that you no longer feel tranquil. It becomes so tranquil that all there is is this equanimity. And so oftentimes it'll feel like the energy of the metta has shifted upward into the mind. It feels like everything from the neck down becomes invisible or you can't feel it. Yes, when there's contact, you will feel that contact in that moment.

The head you are in the mental sphere, and so these are the first four jhanas that you will experience as you continue to collect your mind around the object of metta. Once you start to get to that place, the mind becomes less and less distracted, which means that it's able to stay with its object for longer periods of time before it does get distracted. By the time you're in the fourth jhana, your mind is virtually unwavering. There's very little distraction that can happen. Now, the fourth jhana, we'll talk about the rest of that tomorrow, but the fourth jhana is essentially the base for a lot of things. The fourth jhana can be the base for siddhis or supernatural powers, and it can be the base for the ayatanas or the formless friends, which we'll talk about later. But we'll stop right here. I think that's enough to digest for now, is the enlightenment factors and what happens in the first four jhanas. Are there any questions? Do you have always experienced jhanas anytime?