The first dhyana

Posted By Mahabodhi on Apr 18, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

4 minute read

This excerpt is from Chapter 10 and follows on from Hindrances to Meditation.

First dhyana

In the first dhyana the five hindrances, and sinking and drifting, are completely absent. As a result, the monk abides in a happy human existence, and is able to focus on what is of real importance to him, namely.

1. he can think clearly because the energy levels within his body and mind allow it
2. he is focused exclusively on cultivating skilful mental states, because this is where his confidence truly lie
3. his interest and investment are no longer with sensory experience

This situation is laid out in the Samannaphala Sutta, where the Buddha states that the first dhyana takes place in seclusion from sensuality and unskilful mental states:

‘Quite secluded from sense desires and from unskilful states, the monk enters and abides in the first dhyana, which is accompanied by thinking and pondering, filled with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion.’^[1]

And this experience ‘pervades his whole body’, by which the Buddha usually means something like ‘thoroughly informs his thoughts, emotions and even deeper unconscious tendencies’; in other words, his experience feels complete and unified; integrated:

‘He pervades, drenches, saturates and suffuses his very body with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion, and there is no place in his entire body that is not suffused with this rapture and happiness.’[2]

The first dhyana marks the transition from relying on sensual experience and unskilful mental states to relying only on inner experience and skilful mental states for happiness. Having completely let go of the hindrances the monk has;

1. Confidence (i.e., no more doubt) in the ‘path of skilfulness’ as the route to happiness
2. Energy in mind and body that will support that path (i.e., no ‘energetic’ hindrances)
3. Non-reactivity to sensual experience (i.e., neither sense desire nor aversion)

and is thus able to focus solely on cultivating skilful mental states.

The presence of thought means that the details of such skilfulness are being worked out in this stage; he is able to bring objects to mind (vitaka), reflect upon them (vicara) and thus experiences ‘rapture and happiness born of seclusion.’

The first dhyana need not necessarily take place in seated meditation, it can arise while the monk is sat in an armchair, just as long as he is reflecting upon a skilful theme to become clearer what it means in practical terms. And as insights occur, he experiences rapture and happiness, which because they arise from a skilful source, are of a spiritual nature; it is that joy which arises when the monk sees clearly a way to happiness that doesn’t involve relying on sensual experience or unskilful mental states, but instead relies upon cultivating skilful qualities such as metta, mindfulness, or reflection on the nature of reality or on the qualities of Awakening. That joy increases as he is increasingly convinced of the value of cultivating such states.

The Buddha gives a simile for the first dhyana of a bath attendant perfectly mixing soap powder and water together, so that no powder or water remains.

‘Suppose a skilled bath man, or his assistant, were to sprinkle powdered soap into a metal dish, splash water all around it and knead it into a soap ball, so that the ball of soap would be taken up, permeated and steeped in moisture, inside and outside, yet would not trickle.

 

‘In the same way, the practitioner pervades, drenches, saturates and suffuses this very body with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion, and there is no place in their entire body that is not suffused with rapture and happiness.’ ^[3]

Rapture and happiness are vedana, and therefore fruits of skilful mental states such as metta, but it is really the mental state which pervades the whole of the person; the rapture and happiness are just a fruit of that.

There are different ways that we can view the soap powder simile; one is as follows; if the meditation we are practising when we enter the first dhyana is the metta bhavana, then maybe in the initial stages of the first dhyana we might say that the soap powder and water are not that worked together; what this means in terms of the meditation is that the monks’ psyche (represented by the water) has not been completely integrated with the object of the meditation (the soap); which in this case is the reality that people are sensitive to their experience, and thus need to be treated with kindness and sensitivity.

But once the first dhyana is fully developed the monks’ psyche has been completely integrated with the reality that people are sensitive to their experience and thus need to be treated with kindness and sensitivity. His mind and emotions are completely absorbed in that reality, with no other views present, and they are integrated within themselves.

‘In the first dhyana, water is mixed perfectly with its opposite element, dry powder. The image of mingling opposites together expresses both the vertical and the horizontal integration of unresolved differences in consciousness. Emotionality versus rationality, masculinity versus femininity, consciousness, unconsciousness, introverted and extroverted tendencies all shift and melt into more creative and harmonious coexistence. Dhyana is a state of mental purity in which you feel more truly and deeply yourself than ever before. After meditating in the first dhyana, you may feel the happiness from it for hours and even days or weeks after.’[4]

If we attain the first dhyana whilst practicing the metta bhavana, our subsequent actions will be perfumed with kindness.

In dependence on satisfaction there arises rapture (priti)

The chapter goes on to explore The Second Dhyana.

In dependence on satisfaction there arises rapture (priti)

^[1]Samannaphala Sutta: ‘the fruits of the homeless life.’ DN2. Translation by Sarah Shaw. Sarah Shaw (2006) Buddhist Meditation: An Anthology of Texts from the Pali Canon. Taylor and Francis. In this Sutta the Buddha relates the practical fruits that follow from the Buddhist path to King Ajatasattu: the first higher fruit being the first dhyana.

[2] Ibid.

^[3] Samannaphala Sutta. Translation by Sarah Shaw.

[4] Kamalashila. (2012) ‘Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight.’ Windhorse. Chapter 6.

Support my work on Patreon.