A Buddhist meditation master (Dhammarato) instructs me on the 1st Jhana (video)

[BipolarGrowth]

Working with Dhammarato has sped up my progress in quite amazing ways. I had sporadically and mostly accidentally reached the “higher” formless jhanas and cessation, but now I can say that in many ways strengthening the factors of the 1st jhana has been far more helpful for me than obsessing over those “higher” experiences and trying to reproduce them. The 1st jhana is the path to Nibbana that the Buddha taught, and if you want to live a more pleasant and rich moment-to-moment life in any circumstance you find yourself in, growing yourself in the skills of the 1st jhana is absolutely crucial. This is first and foremost about raising your baseline consciousness. If you want to get the true potential out of psychedelics, you’re not going to have an easy or fun time with an underdeveloped baseline. 
 

Psychedelics and dry insight practice taught by western Buddhism are plenty fun and can contribute to a lot of growth, but they aren’t the most important pieces to the puzzle of living the best life, in my opinion and from my direct experience. I hope that those of you out there who do deal with suffering regularly will take the time to watch this talk with Dhammarato. The spiritual path doesn’t have to be riddled with dark night of the soul periods if you are practicing correctly. He teaches for free, typically on all weekdays, and is surprisingly easily to reach. Let me know by PM if you’d like his contact information. His YouTube channel has over one thousand talks with seekers like myself. 
 

Dhammarato also has weekly Sangha meetings for both UK and US groups on Skype. One of the most beneficial things on my personal spiritual path has been to surround myself with many others who are also in the process of developing themselves spiritually. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by BipolarGrowth

[Mosess]

beautiful, thank you for sharing ❤️

[itachi uchiha]

But can u reach this stage by osho method

[RedLine]

What he teaches is very similar to TMI. Use the breath as an ancle and be aware of the mind and the same time. Nice!

[BipolarGrowth]

21 minutes ago, itachi uchiha said:

But can u reach this stage by osho method

Can you explain the method or provide a link? My guess is that anything Osho taught practiced properly and consistently would lead to development of the first jhana qualities. The real question is if it is as effective and direct of a method.

[itachi uchiha]

@BipolarGrowth oshos technique was witnessing thoughts

 

[itachi uchiha]

@BipolarGrowth how does this master make a living out of?

He looks like super hippie

[RedLine]

1 minute ago, itachi uchiha said:

@BipolarGrowth how does this master make a living out of?

He looks like super hippie

retirement US pension + living in Thailand I guess

[softlyblossoming]

@itachi uchiha He doesn't make money from dhamma.

I don't know where he gets his money from.

Call up and ask him? Lol

[itachi uchiha]

34 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

@itachi uchiha He doesn't make money from dhamma.

I don't know where he gets his money from.

Call up and ask him? Lol

@RedLine 

 

Greatest sages never try to make money from meditation.they accept donation.although there are some greate sages who make money for their organisation.all of them appraoch it as not for profit

[BipolarGrowth]

7 hours ago, itachi uchiha said:

@BipolarGrowth oshos technique was witnessing thoughts

 

Witnessing thoughts is good, but I’d have to say that if you can change your thinking to only be “wholesome” thoughts as Dhammarato discusses, it would be a win-win. Wholesome in this sense does not mean simply moral thoughts but rather things that are worthy of your attention and investigation. 

[Happy Lizard]

I have been interested in entering the first Jhana for quite sometime. I wouldn’t say that I’m practicing diligently or constantly (last year I had an injury that completely interpreted my meditation   routine), but I practiced meditation -focussing on the breath with labeling  - for almost 2 years not skipping any day, but really haven’t had any interesting development. 
 

I also have a difficultly focussing on the breath where the lips and nostrils are, and I’ve heard that Jhanas are difficult to reach if the object was belly movement. 
 

how long did it take you to develop in your practice?

[BipolarGrowth]

3 hours ago, Happy Lizard said:

I have been interested in entering the first Jhana for quite sometime. I wouldn’t say that I’m practicing diligently or constantly (last year I had an injury that completely interpreted my meditation   routine), but I practiced meditation -focussing on the breath with labeling  - for almost 2 years not skipping any day, but really haven’t had any interesting development. 
 

I also have a difficultly focussing on the breath where the lips and nostrils are, and I’ve heard that Jhanas are difficult to reach if the object was belly movement. 
 

how long did it take you to develop in your practice?

I’ve been practicing for about eight years now, but you might say seriously practicing for closer to three or four years. I could explain some tips on how to enter the first jhana, but listening to the video before I try to help would be best as Dhammarato is going to say most of it better than I would be able to. One of the most important things is to do a solid meditation which just takes skill in being able to stay with a meditation object well while adding wholesome thoughts to kind of kick start your ability to get into the jhana. Wholesome thoughts are things such as “I can do this”, “ahh, everything’s okay right now”, “I’m safe and secure”, etc. The degree to which you can honestly feel these thoughts to be true and accurate affects how much they will be effective in actually bringing you into the jhana. Once you can resonate with these thoughts and are used to having more and more of them throughout your daily life, which you intentionally build over time, they will be part of the missing puzzle that most western Buddhism or other newer meditation teachings are missing. This can sound rather unlike most modern meditation advice to get away from thoughts, but it comes directly from the Ānāpānasati Sutta spoken by the Buddha.