Maybe you are doing jhana/concentration wrong!

[RedLine]

Recently, I realized that I was practicing concentration meditation incorrectly.

 

In my past practice I followed the Leo Gura and Daniel Ingram -first jhana- instructions for concentration practice (or at least what I understood from it).  What I was doing is choosing an object of concentration and concentrating very hard on it, like a laser, making efford and trying to silence the background. It made sense to me, since on a day-to-day basis, when I want to focus on something very important, I naturally make a great efford to focus, open my eyes, intentionlly silence my thouhgs, etc; It's an act of great effort, it's not like letting go.

 

But, what I recently learn, based of jhana teachers as Leigh Brasington, Michael W. Taft and Rob Burbea is that the practice of concentration is about efortless and joy, not very hard intention on the object. This is counterintuitive, because it is not how concentration works in ordinary life.

 

Here a summary of the instructions (also Leo Gura and Daniel Ingram dont´mention the pati phase which seems like a central point) :

 

 

You may also be practicing the exercise wrong, so I think it is important to share this with you.

[Nahm]

Great share. 

[mandyjw]

3 hours ago, RedLine said:

What I was doing is choosing an object of concentration and concentrating very hard on it, like a laser, making efford and trying to silence the background.

I found this video was a huge AHA moment for me. Focus/ unfocused is a duality. 

 

[The0Self]

Wonderful. Open-heartedness is more important than focus, for jhana. Also, steadiness is more important than intensity.

[Michal__]

The thing is if you do enough concentration work, jhãnas happen even if you don't know what you are doing. If you stay in access concentration long enough 1st jhãna will come whether you try or not. After that it is relatively easy to unlock the next Jhãnas if you practice enough.

Have you ever tried counting your breaths for 1.5hrs for a few days in a row?

[snowyowl]

I saw this thread by following a link from another one, "Building Concentration Recommendations". I had a similar trajectory with concentration / mindfulness of breathing meditation. Concentration used to feel like an effort, but when I experienced the effortlessness of letting-go, I realised there could be a similar approach to concentration. 

The awareness of breathing is already always present, it's a sensation which I can't turn off even if I wanted to. So all I need to do is rest my attention on that, and let go of everything else. It's kind of a stepping stone to letting-go of everything, but having one anchor left. Becoming effortless made it easier to drop the separate self watching the breath, and merge with it.