Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: “Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content.” (SN 47.10)   When feeling a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling in the body, one is aware: “Feeling a bodily neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling … one is just aware, just mindful: 'There is feeling.'” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection Of the three kinds of feeling tone—pleasant, painful, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful—it is this third, neutral feeling that is the most challenging to the practice of mindfulness. Feeling tones arise in a steady stream, just like the stream of consciousness; the practice is to pay close enough attention to the textured sensation of each moment. The object is one thing (sight, sound, etc.), and the feeling tone that arises with it is another.  Daily Practice Sit quietly for some stretch of time and attend carefully to all the neutral sensations in the body. You might even scan systematically from head to foot looking for all the feeling tones that are occurring. Some are obviously pleasant, some are clearly painful. What about the rest? These are the neutral sensations—you feel them, but they do not feel good or bad. They are just there. Feel what it's like to feel what is just there.  RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna) With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4) Reflection The mind is capable, through training, of becoming more concentrated than is usual in ordinary daily experience. The Buddha describes this as a natural process, unfolding as the body and mind become gradually happier and more tranquil while the mind is focusing upon a single object. In the second phase of this process, discursive thinking gradually fades away as the feeling of pleasure and well-being grows stronger and deepens. Daily Practice As you sit quietly and focus on your breathing, the thoughts and memories and plans that so habitually inhabit the mind begin to settle, and the mind becomes calmer. At a certain point thoughts may cease altogether. Awareness of sensory experience remains strong, but it is no longer mediated by words, images, or concepts. The need to re-engage the mind with an object and hold it there is no longer needed, so these functions drop away. Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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