Ep18: The Jhanas - Leigh Brasington 

Wow - thank you so much for sharing. Can you talk a little about your past experience? How often you meditate etc? And what do you do for work? I am very curious and an avid meditator

Past retreat info too** :)

Thanks, Cedar - glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks Kim, I'm happy you enjoyed it!

Thanks Lee! I'm curious what you think made this the best one yet? :-)

Guru Viking the conversation flowed effortlessly, I like his pragmatic no nonsense approach, I’m a big fan of Ayya Khema, folllow her teachings online, I consider her my ‘guru’

@@leekrogulski2415 Great! I'm glad you enjoyed it :-) Did you ever meet Ayya Khema?

Guru Viking unfortunately no, really wish I had have met her, there is an abundance of her talks online, in a way it feels like I do know her, listen to her talks and follow her meditations

I have had a couple of experiences, one when I was on a silent retreat at an Anglican monastery in mirfield West Yorkshire, none of the monks could explain what it was till I read about the Jhanas in one of Ayya Khemas books, for me it happened via prayer, usually using a rosary

Thanks Jo!

Thank you very much!

I agree, I think Steves interview style is also awesome

Well said! with Ayya Khema’s transmission would it work to listen to her audio and do self retreats?

@@JoshuaRichardson123 definitely worth the effort😊

Yea I wondered why he did that

​@@wanderingdoc5075 most likely just editing the video and didn't realize he cut that part out

What did he say that’s in disagreement?

The problem is that not only does each school of Buddhism have it's own definition of enlightenment, but so do the other vedic religions like Jainism and the different Yoga schools along with Hinduism. I've come to the conclusion that enlightenment doesn't even exist. It puts mythical people like the Buddha on a pedestal by those that wrote down his teachings. The Buddha was probably just a philosopher with a bad case of depression and schizophrenia (he claimed he only slept an hour a night and taught his teachings to aliens at night).

i would disagree with you . there are indicators that may tell whether one has reached sotapana (stream entry) . but it's difficult to tell by oneself .Good example serves the sutta where a merchant would get angry at his employees and would go to buddha and ask him whether he attained sotapana and buddha would reasure him he did,but the merchant was doubting it due to still being able to get angry . The only clear milestone is reaching the 3 stage called anagami (never returnee) ,where one has removed completely loba(anger/aversion/hatred) and lobha (greed/desire) . The stage where one is not interested in fullfilling his 6 senses.

@@johnbloom1109 your comment is filled with wrong views and ignorance ,but that's okay. there's no such thing as school of buddhism .There is Dhamma ,which describes how things come into existence (suffering ) and how to stop it .Just like science describes how things work. could you please elaborate what does enlightenment mean in your perception and what is the enlightment buddha talked about?

Amazing - thank you so much for sharing. Can you talk a little about your past experience? How often you meditate etc? Retreats etc? And what do you do for work? I am very curious and an avid meditator

I just got off retreat recently and also stopped meditating - lasted a few weeks how long was yours?

Can you suggest book? I really want to practice with a teacher,but I can't?

@@Selen304 I haven’t read Leigh’s book but it has high reviews. I’m read ‘The Mind Illuminated’ by John Yates PhD who is a meditator and neuroscientist.

To me it looks like Western Buddhism is reinterpreting The Buddha’s teachings into a modern rational viewpoint. (Or in other words interpreting based on their current cognitive bias). In my actual experience my insights have been amazingly accurately relatable to The Buddha’s description of various insights in the Sutta’s. Gautama appeared to be exceptionally clear & exact in describing reality. If Siddhi’s relate to dreaming, there’s nothing clear in the Suttas to support this interpretation. So I remain open to the possibility of the Siddhi’s but I’ve not actually experienced them. I like Leigh’s point that the more we become liberated, the more we answer questions with “I don’t know!”. Which is my view on the subject!

Interesting, do you remember where you saw/read Ajahn Brahm intimating that he is able to levitate?

@@GuruViking It was during one of his many RU-vid videos. Probably one of his Jhana videos. He jokes saying that if he let everyone know he can levitate that he would essentially be taken by some government agency and would be subject to them. Was he joking? I didn't take it that way. I will take a brief look around and see if I can find the video - a tall order because he has so many.

@@GuruViking Found the video. Called Superpower Mindfulness I marked the subject with a time stamp for you Look for stamp called Pychic Powers here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OSAY1_ykmY0.html Very inspirational!

@@Rover08 He also claimed that for every animal or bug that dies a new one is reincarnated making the number of lives always equal which is complete nonsense. Ajahn Brahm spews a lot of nonsense like the story he told of the man that was deep in meditation and woke up after being resuscitated.

Cool - thank you so much for sharing. Can you talk a little about your past experience? How often you meditate etc? Retreats etc? And what do you do for work? I am very curious and an avid meditator

@@JoshuaRichardson123 Sorry for such delayed reply. i didn’t see your comment until I listened again to this interview. I was raised a Buddhist, met my Zen teacher at 5 years old and became his student. I left for Toronto, Canada shortly after. I'm from Vietnam but later grew up in Toronto, Canada. Although I didn't practice Zen (Thiền) until 15 years old. Vietnam doesn’t distinguish Rinzai or Soto Zen like Japan. It isn’t sectarian so we just call it Patriarch Zen and practice both methods together. I went to a few Thich Nhat Hanh's retreats as a teenager, listened to thousands of hours of Dharma talks, read hundreds of Buddhists books, studied Classical Chinese and Zen texts, but my practice didn't go anywhere until my teacher came out of 10 years solitary retreat to guide me. I experienced Kensho at 28 (Zen's equivalent to stream-entry). It was a very deep awakening that I had no choice but to go all out. Basically, I sat 1 hour before that but after I sat 2-4 hours daily for 5-6 years after and took my practice off the cushion to everyday life. I went on two 3-4 months solitary retreats in 10 years and a lot of 1-week solitary retreats. When people say taking things off the cushion, they don't really know what it means. It means open awareness or non-dual states outside of the cushion. It's referred to as Wu-Wei in Taoism and Rigpa in Dzogchen or the 7th Jhana in Theravada Buddhism. But Theravada's Buddhism Jhanas and Arupas only refer to sitting meditation, not off it. You can actually experience it off the cushion in everyday life, when that happens, it's referred to as "cessation". In Zen practice you have to continually crack your head against koans for years continuously to return to the non-dual state and learn to enter it often in everyday life to be able to let go of all conception. So I basically did that while working professionally as a legal consultant and running my own business. It's hard, but I'm challenged with "hard". That's why I'm attracted to Rinzai Zen or the Vietnamese equivalent Lâm Tế Thiền. You got to learn to do "moving meditation" while having the ideal condition in a solitary retreat. You seriously need to be able to call up a good teacher for directions or explanation of whatever you're experiencing if you're going into solitary retreat. It can be a real mind-trip if you are doing something longer than a month! When you figured out how to be in the still-point or experience non-duality while moving about, then go back to regular life and apply it. I basically have to take the mental stance, make a decision at all times that nothing else, including my life, my career, my money, my status in society, and my family was more important than the practice of maintaining inner stillness (the mental internal practice, not the external sitting one, although I did a lot of that too). Although I didn't really lose out making that choice because they all kinda worked out. But it's an attitude most people will not do in any sort of practice. Although I did make a choice to not have any children early on in my Buddhist practice because I know children are the strongest of all attachments. Children also take up a lot of time so you won't have enough to dedicate to the practice. So the dedication to the practice is very rigorous. One of my teachers in Vietnam, who was a wandering begging monk of the Theravada tradition who wandered for 20+ years to beg and sleep under trees, told me that to truly practice meditation in the world you have to take the stance "A meditator is a person who is already dead, to use this dead body to experience the present reality." I've been very grateful that I was lucky to run into two wonderful dedicated yogis in the Buddhist meditation traditions (one Theravada and one Zen) who are not famous but quite adept at meditation and the dharma practice because that's all they cared about. So I started my path when I was 15, now I'm 46. My advice to any practitioner who is serious about their practice is... find a good teacher, or a few good ones and stick to them. I stuck with my first teacher for 27 years and still have a good relationship with him. While he was in 10 years solitary retreat, I must have gone through dozens of teachers who were allegedly famous but were nowhere far in their meditation practise or being able to translate that to everyday life. I found out the hard way, you're busy being famous, you have no time to dedicate to your meditation practice. Also, famous teachers have no time for you. A serious meditation practice requires a lot of personal guidance and one on one communication. Get a teacher you can call up and discuss your experiences with at any time. Two of my teachers were both meditation virtuosos and lived pretty much a humble lifestyle remaining relatively unknown in the Buddhist community. I can't tell you if becoming an Arahant is possible, because I haven't met one yet despite meeting hundreds of famous and dedicated monks and nuns in their practice. They all seemed to still have 3 poisons arising. Although being an Anagami is possible and entering and exiting cessation is possible in everyday life or as a householder. I also noticed that I lost interest in desiring for a lot of things since being able to enter and exit cessation often, especially sensual desires toward the opposite sex. The longest I was able to do that without breaks is 10 days. Now pretty much it's an everyday occurrence since if I stay out of cessation for long, suffering ensues. Even a little mental discomfort is HUGE suffering now, so I can't help it returning to the still-point. Any form of willing or the most subtle arising of desire to not accept things as they are in the present will take me out of the non-dual still point. It’s not an easy practice at all. My teacher said if someone don’t lose the cessation experience sometimes, they’re pretty much the walking Buddha. I have no regrets for embarking on this practice. It paid off in spades, more than anything I could have imagined when I started it.

@@moonmissy thank you very much

You're welcome!

I believe it was the Samannaphala Sutta: www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.02.0.than.html

Alyson Lie thank you! 🙏🏼

Pali term for meditative joy is "Preethi" western pronunciation sounds like "piti" . I heard there is samatha dhyana and vipassana dhayana and the latter is not intense

Is there any books or other resources that you'd reccomend, about the energies and energy states you are referring to?

@@maltejohnsson8578 the Seth material for me contains the most up to date descriptions of these energy states + potentials . It is rather a large body of work but you can find some good renditions of it on you tube there is one video about the god-concept that you may find interesting . if you type in Seth god concept it should take you there . Hope you find this interesting .

Whew! Wow. That’s a lot. What a set of lessons.

Because when he spoke of abandoning the 5 hinderances it was only supposed to be temporary abandonment, like abandoning them for that meditation session.

I don't agree with all that Leigh says here, or maybe I need more clarification, but I do believe from direct experience that one not need maintain any sexual inactivity before entering the Jhanas. I think this taught backwards, to be honest. Once getting Jhanas, the desire for sexual activity and the other restrictions on freely living - die down dramatically on their own. It is very difficult and now I know - unnecessary - to stop all sexual activity before you can reach Jhanas. :)

@@JhanaMeditation agree you stop wanting, it happened naturally to me too

So?