There are certain states of mind that are exclusively experienced through the use of meditation, each one building upon the last, manifesting themselves out of the previous state of consciousness. These unique states of mind, of course, are relevant to any experience, but the four with which I am granting differentiation and specific classification, are those that are found through Samatha concentrating meditation, and are known by Buddhists as the four jhanas. They are meditative states, and have certain attributes in their experiencing, and certain requirements or preconditions to their arising. It is important to strictly pursue the Samatha meditation with the right intentions, of improving concentration, in focusing upon the present moment, and expanding the mind through practice. Any intention whilst practicing to achieve these states of jhana will hinder your development in their arising, we must practice without the intention to change our current mode of being, if we are suffering, we shouldn’t enter meditation to alleviate it, we should practice with diligence towards the intention of becoming closer to the truth, in becoming more moral, in developing wisdom and compassion, rather than for the egotistical benefit of desiring to achieve some sensual or internal pleasure. These things should naturally follow from the good intentioned practice.

These meditative states are able to be entered through Samatha Meditation, in which the practitioner is focused upon a single object, such as the breath. By one pointed concentration directed towards the experiencing of the object of concentration, we enter into Samatha meditation. As Our mind wanders to different content, naturally, we bring the gaze of awareness back to the object, and if we have gained enough concentration, and effectively cultivated a state of mind which is free of attachment, has been liberated from the ego, and finds pleasure in seclusion from sensual pleasures, then we are moving along the path towards the manifestation of the first jhana, or state of mind cultivated by Samatha meditation. If there has been sufficient cultivation of a wholesome mind, marked in ways listed before, that desires and puts forth effort in abandoning Ill will, delusion, craving and clinging, then with single pointed concentration into the present moment upon the object of meditation, you enter the first jhana. This is marked by a great pleasure of being secluded and in not desiring sensual pleasures. It is a contentment with the present moment experience of consciousness, devoid of external influence as a source of happiness, and a foundation of inner peace based on the inner disposition. This mode of Being is cultivated by prior experience in traveling the Eightfold path and the resultant of concentration within the framework of abandonment of previously mentioned defilements and unwholesome qualities. This pleasure within comes from knowing that you are cultivating wholesomeness, becoming a better person while practicing, so it is working toward enlightenment, or in other words we experience joy, through the practice of cultivating the highest possible form of ourselves. This combines the joy of personal spiritual growth and understanding, with the happiness from virtuous activity, which comes from knowing that the practice will increase wholesome interactions stemming from your own Being with to those you come in contact with (family, friends, coworkers, society, and sentient beings in general). The first jhanas is characterized by removal of five hindrances (Ill will, doubt, laziness, restlessness and greed or sensual pleasure) and experience of five jhanas factors (happiness, one pointedness of mind (concentration), applied thought, sustained thought, rapture). While this is the beginning of jhana development, there still is maintained discursive thought, and while meditating upon the object of attention, we shouldn’t seek to “empty our minds” or remove this thought, we should only be concerned with concentrating upon the present moment and the object which we are focusing upon. We shouldn’t be averse to any thoughts that arise within this state that bring us away from the object, we should only recognize them, and bring attention back to the object of concentration.

The second jhana is characterized by the removal of two factors cultivated in the first, that of sustained thought and applied thought, and is marked by further unification of concentration and gain a pleasurable sensation through the increase in sustained concentration, which is a modified version of positive emotion from the first jhana. You no longer are applying conceptualizations to the content of experience, but are rather experiencing the object of concentration, to a greater degree of sustainability than previously experienced. You can experience the first jhana as pleasure in the thoughts of wholesomeness, and the second in pleasure born of the sustained concentration of the experience without thought, the moment without thinking. This doesn’t mean we should actively pursue the removal of thought, it only means, with enough emersion into the present moment, and enough cultivation of concentration, the thoughts that describe phenomena and the thoughts which move to different phenomena, merely fade away, and the feeling of pleasure is conditioned by the concentration itself, not in the pleasure of being secluded.

The third jhana is characterized by equanimity, also without thought or conceptualization, with an ever increasing concentration and emergence into the phenomenon which is the object of awareness, but with an understanding and acceptance of the body as it is, acceptance and appreciation of the life happening within, which doesn’t include a thought stream but maintains a strict awareness within the present moment. The joy comes from this equanimity and contentedness within the present moment, no matter on the situation or experiences surrounding your life. It is the effective detachment from the content of experience, and the peace that arises from this detachment, is born of acceptance of the present moment regardless of its content. This equanimity is the crucial part of the third jhana, and constitutes the middle path, neither excessive self torture, nor in sensual pleasures, but restraint in not going to either extreme, and the contentment and happiness found in that mode of Being located between the two. Neither desiring or running towards fame, wealth, or immortality, nor being repulsive or running from the states of unpopularity, poverty, or death, is equanimity. Neither pleasure in being a wholesome state of consciousness, or non-pleasure in being in an unwholesome state of consciousness, whether experiencing a positive emotion such as love, or a negative emotion such as anger, the equanimity marked by emergence in the third jhana fosters a state of mind that is not perturbed by any content arising in the mind.

In the fourth jhana the ability to be equanimous in the state of pleasure or pain, is replaced by pure mindfulness and equanimity, in which there is no longer an experience at all arising of either pleasure nor pain. While equanimity and contentedness began to develop in the third, in the fourth the pleasure is replaced by a calm, clean, purified consciousness that is ultimately equanimous, without thought, without the emotion of positive joy or negative dissatisfaction. So the pleasurable sensation which was concurrent throughout the first three leaves us, the thought which was present in the first is no longer there, the full emergence into the present with undivided attention, not being broken by any distracting phenomena is attained in the fourth. The first jhana destroys the five hindrances, and begins concentration, and happiness from thinking of the mind in this state. The second removes the thought attached to the concentration, and focuses on the concentration itself. The third is an increase in happiness and concentration, and the beginning of developing equanimous feeling. In the fourth the happiness is replaced by a pure emergence in the awareness in the present moment while concentration and equanimity becomes a constant.

It is said that from the fourth jhana stems psychic powers, to this, I can offer no experiential evidence, nor logical reasoning to its existence. What is known, is that there are different states of Being that are able to be cultivated through sufficient concentration, and their delineation is possible to be characterized by these four classifications. In practice, the transition from each state of mind, in each person, I would assume, is most likely a very hard thing to pin down, especially in the present moment. But in a retrospective analysis as to what was experiencing in Samatha meditation, if sufficiently analyzed and meditation effectively practiced, we can conceptualize the experience as containing the above states, that is, if they were attained. It must be remarked that our experience is changing in degrees, and a strong “line that is crossed” in reference to the successive jhana states is never experienced, we merely move from state to state in degrees, along a spectrum of experience, each state doesn’t appear in its entirety in a concrete step. Experience flows, and we can mark of the jhana by the retrospective analysis of experience as it flowed, and make the distinctions listed above. All in all, the jhanas are not to be experienced for the pleasure and states that they can provide us while experiencing them, but our intention should always be to merely practice concentration, with an aim to character development, and inner expansion. Any unwholesome intentions will not only bar us from experiencing the jhanas, but will also contaminate any attempt of mental training or cultivating of character traits.