Nancy’s Noble Eightfold Theory and Practice – Right Concentration, Serenity
Once the Three Poisons and the five hindrances have somewhat subsided, it is time to get into Jhana practice. Sit comfortably on a chair or the floor, relax your body, smile with a joyful mindset, and take a few intentional breaths, noticing your breath on your philtrum. As you feel the sensation of your breath, breathe naturally and continue to focus your mind on the sensation of your breath on your philtrum. Avoid tension, impatience, lust, self-blame, anger, and irritation while doing this. Otherwise, you will fall victim to the five hindrances yet again. You will notice that your mind does not stay put, even when you tell it to do so. As experienced through the above practice, the mind wanders frantically around the six sense doors. That is the untrained mind’s true nature. Of course, there is no way that crazy fool (mind) would obey your words—there is no bossing it around! This is natural. You have to be patient. You must guide the mind slowly and patiently as if handling a fussy, crying child.
You will notice that the five hindrances settle down and subside easily when you have practiced the above well. When this happens, the mind will concentrate, and the bliss of the first Jhana will arise. Joy may manifest differently from person to person. Usually, the body may rock and shake with pleasure initially. The breath may synchronize with the rhythm of your heartbeat and ignite a feeling of euphoria. This feeling is, in many cases, similar to sexual pleasure.
If you allow this rapture to arise and continue, it will eventually calm down to happy feelings. If you focus on your breath and immerse yourself in these happy feelings, your concentration will increase, and your thoughts will stop in time, followed by more sublime joy and happiness of the second Jhana. Trying to reduce or stop your thinking at this point will be a hindrance to you. Your thoughts will eventually stop if you continue to sit and wait calmly. The rapture and happiness of the first Jhana are rawer than the joy and happiness that arise in the second Jhana. When you move to the third Jhana, your mind becomes equanimous, and your body enjoys happiness. After a while, your body's happiness will subside. You have reached the fourth Jhana, where only equanimity and concentration remain.
As you continue to focus on your breath in the fourth Jhana, your breath will slow and intermittently cease. Do not try to control your breathing here; it will strain your body and break your concentration.
From this point on, you must continue practicing all four Jhanas so you may enter, remain, and exit at will.
It would be best if you practiced from the first Jhana to the fourth Jhana until you can remain in the Jhana state for about one hour and thirty minutes to three hours. It would help if you also practiced going up from the first Jhana to the fourth Jhana and then coming down from the fourth Jhana to the first Jhana.
After sufficient Jhana practice, it is time to practice insight into the five Jhana factors: applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, happiness, and one-pointedness of mind. Through insight, you will experientially know the nature of the Jhana factors: impermanence, suffering, and non-self. The insight practice is done after exiting each Jhana state. In addition to seeing the nature of the Jhana factors, you also need to know everything about them and gain a mastery of them. Through the insight of the Jhanas, you may avoid the attachment to the form realms, the sixth fetter among the ten fetters from arising.
Remember that Jhana practice must be consistently maintained—like brushing your teeth daily. When the practice of Jhana ceases, Samadhi also disappears. This simple fact applies to everyone! When you have reached this benchmark in your practice, you must remain awake (Sati and Sampajanna) all the time (except when sleeping!) and practice Jhana every day for thirty to one hour and thirty minutes.