No.228 - Is it jhana when the breath appears to stop?

Ajahn Suchart

Question:  Is it jhāna when the breath appears to stop?

Than Ajahn:  No, it only means that your mind is watching the breath. It becomes jhāna when the mind enters calm where you no longer pay attention to the breath. You go deeper and become calmer. You get to the fourth jhāna when the mind stops paying attention to the body. The mind becomes still and happy by itself. Sometimes it can still hear sounds or feel the body, but the mind is not disturbed by what it hears or what it feels. This is the fourth jhāna.

If you want to go deeper, you have to concentrate the mind further. Then, you will go into the arūpa-jhāna. However, it is not necessary to go to that deeper level. If you want to develop the mind to reach enlightenment, you only need the fourth jhāna. After you withdraw from the fourth jhāna, when you go back to the normal state of mind, you teach your mind that everything that the mind craves for is impermanent. Everything will cause you to suffer because it will change or it will one day disappear.

So, when your mind wants to have anything, it knows that it’s going to end up in suffering. Then, you will not want to have anything. You can stop your desires or your cravings for things and people. Once you have no cravings and desires, there will be no mental agitation, restlessness, anguish or suffering left in the mind.

“Dhamma in English, Feb 27, 2018.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

www.phrasuchart.com

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[6:55 am, 01/04/2020] 💙 Angeline:

No.227 - A Rotten Apple.

A rotten apple

Imagine being part of the Buddha’s community. Your every thoughts, act and deeds is seen through and through. Your intentions, dreams , fantasies and feelings are open to inspections. To be part of the Buddha’s team, means you wear your heart on the sleeve and to be ruthlessly honest in inquiries and to others. One man thought he can get away with it ; let’s see....

Every full moon ,the Buddha would recite the Patimokkha (rules for monks). On that particular day, he absolutely refused to recite : instead the Buddha just sitting there silently. After a few hours Ānanda reminded him again :

“Ānanda, the gathering isn't pure.”

Moggallana was also at the meeting so he use his psychic power to scan the mind of all the present monks.

“He saw that individual — unprincipled, evil, unclean and suspect in his undertakings, hidden in his actions, not a contemplative though claiming to be one, not leading the holy life though claiming to do so, inwardly rotten, oozing with desire, filthy by nature — sitting in the midst of the community of monks. “

Moggallāna approached the guy and told him to leave, three times, but he remained silent. He then picked up the guy and shoved him out and expelled him from the monastery.

From then on, the monks have to recite the Patimokkha themselves. The Buddha said :

“It is impossible, it cannot happen, that a Tathāgata would perform the observance or recite the Pāṭimokkha with an impure gathering.”

Whether we are govern by the monk’s rules or as lay practitioners, we need to know that we have caused harm to others for whatever reasons and ask for pardon. This is to elleviate   the guilt and regret feeling that disturb the mind. Try it : go through your contacts list today and sent a “sorry” messages to all of those you think you may have been a cause for their harm.

Uposatha

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.5.05.than.html