27. Training in Concentration
The Buddha defines concentration as the mind’s having a single gathering place (cittass’ek’aggatā). In his standard definition of right concentration, he doesn’t mention the object that acts as the mind’s gathering place, but those objects are listed elsewhere in the discourses: In one passage, the themes of right concentration are said to be the four establishings of mindfulness (MN 44). Another passage, AN 8:70, lists these four themes and adds four more: the four sublime attitudes of universal goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. These sublime attitudes count as mental qualities, which means that right concentration focuses on gathering the mind around one of the themes of right mindfulness.
Note, too, that in the standard definition of right concentration, the Buddha doesn’t give instructions on how to get into right concentration. He does that elsewhere, as we’ve noted, in his description of right mindfulness.
Instead, the standard definition of right concentration is concerned more with how right concentration is experienced in terms of four levels of jhāna, or mental absorption. These levels differ from one another both in the mind’s relationship to the object in the various levels, and in the feeling-tone characteristic of each.
The first jhāna is characterized by feelings of pleasure and rapture—both physical and mental—coming from the fact that the mind is secluded from unskillful thoughts. However, it’s still thinking about and evaluating the object of its focus—as in the simile of the cook evaluating whether his master likes or doesn’t like his food—and making adjustments to get better results: both in making sure the mind stays secluded from sensuality and in maximizing the rapture and pleasure that come from seclusion. MN 78 notes that this is the highest level of skillful resolves.
In the second jhāna, the mind no longer has to question its relationship to the object. As MN 125 notes, it’s focused on its object but doesn’t engage in any thinking, even about the object itself. MN 78 adds that even skillful resolves cease on this level of concentration. The mind’s focus is maintained by an intention and a single perception of the object (MN 111; AN 9:36). The simplicity of both the intention and perception allows the mind to plunge with assurance into a state of oneness with the object. This oneness carries through the remaining jhānas. On this level, stronger feelings of pleasure and rapture result from the oneness of the mind.
In the third jhāna, rapture fades away, the mind is equanimous, but there are still feelings of pleasure in the body.
In the fourth jhāna, the pleasure fades away. Equanimity and mindfulness reach a state of purity.
Here’s the Canon’s standard description of these four jhānas:
“There is the case where a monk—quite secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful dhammas—enters & remains in the first jhāna: rapture & pleasure born of seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation.
“With the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters & remains in the second jhāna: rapture & pleasure born of concentration, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation—internal assurance.
“With the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhāna, of which the noble ones declare, ‘Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.’
“With the abandoning of pleasure & pain—as with the earlier disappearance of elation & distress—he enters & remains in the fourth jhāna: purity of equanimity & mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain.” — SN 45:8
The Buddha also gives a set of similes to describe the jhānas, and which provide more information about them. To begin with, they show that jhāna, instead of being narrowly one-pointed, is actually a state of stable full-body awareness. In the first three jhānas, the feeling-tones of the jhānas are allowed to permeate and saturate the body to the extent that no part of the body is unsaturated by that feeling-tone. In the fourth jhāna, the body is simply filled by a pure bright awareness. Other passages note that, in the fourth jhāna, the in-and-out breathing naturally stops (SN 36:11; AN 10:72). In other words, you don’t sense any in-and-out breathing, even though you are fully aware of the body throughout. This is when absorption becomes strongest and most stable.
[The first jhāna:] “Just as if a dexterous bathman or bathman’s apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again & again with water, so that his ball of bath powder—saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within & without—would nevertheless not drip; in the same way, the monk permeates & pervades, suffuses & fills this very body with the rapture & pleasure born of seclusion. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture & pleasure born of seclusion.”
[The second jhāna:] “Just like a lake with spring-water welling up from within, having no inflow from the east, west, north, or south, and with the skies supplying abundant showers time & again, so that the cool fount of water welling up from within the lake would permeate & pervade, suffuse & fill it with cool waters, there being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool waters; in the same way, the monk permeates & pervades, suffuses & fills this very body with the rapture & pleasure born of concentration. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture & pleasure born of concentration.”
[The third jhāna:] “Just as in a lotus pond, some of the lotuses, born & growing in the water, stay immersed in the water and flourish without standing up out of the water, so that they are permeated & pervaded, suffused & filled with cool water from their roots to their tips, and nothing of those lotuses would be unpervaded with cool water; in the same way, the monk permeates & pervades, suffuses & fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with pleasure divested of rapture.”
[The fourth jhāna:] “Just as if a man were sitting covered from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; in the same way, the monk sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness.” — DN 2
In all of these similes, water represents pleasure; and movement, rapture. The amount of water in the second and third similes, as compared to the amount in the first, indicates that the pleasure in these two jhānas is much stronger and more pervasive than the pleasure in the first. The stillness of the lotuses in the third simile, and of the sitting man in the fourth, indicate that although rapture may be refreshing on the earlier levels of jhāna, its absence—after it has done its work—is very peaceful and calm.
Other details in the similes also make important points about the differences and relationships among the jhānas. For example, the activity of the bathman in the simile for the first jhāna—the only simile that has a conscious agent doing anything—symbolizes the activity of directed thought and evaluation, which figure out how to spread the sense of pleasure and rapture throughout the body. This is unlike the movement of the spring water in the simile for the second jhāna, which involves no conscious effort at all. Also—unlike the movement of the spring water, which is totally immersed in the water of the lake—the bathman isn’t totally immersed in the water he’s kneading into the bath powder. This symbolizes the fact that the mind isn’t totally immersed and surrounded by pleasure in the first jhāna, but stands somewhat apart from it. Only in the second jhāna is the mind totally immersed in a sense of oneness with its object.
At the same time, however, without the efforts of the bathman, the water wouldn’t get thoroughly worked into the ball of bath powder, and there would be no body-filling pleasure into which the mind could get immersed in the second jhāna. So the work of directed thought and evaluation, instead of being a mere instability in the first jhāna, actually accomplishes a necessary task: It prepares the way for the mind to enter the higher jhānas.
As MN 117 notes, when directed thought and evaluation are doing this work, they’re performing the work of noble right resolve. In this way, the simile of the bathman—who has to be sensitive to the right combination of water and bath powder—conveys a message similar to the simile of the cook above, who has to be sensitive to the needs and tastes of his employer. Both similes portray the work of discernment in preparing the mind to enter and remain in concentration. And, because evaluation can play a role in moving from one jhāna to a higher one, both similes can also be applied to the work of discernment in being sensitive to what needs to be done to refine your mastery of concentration as well.
