The second dhyana

Posted By Mahabodhi on Apr 19, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

7 minute read

This excerpt is from Chapter 10 and follows on from The First Dhyana.

Rapture

Second dhyana

Each remaining dhyana is a development of the first dhyana; involving a further withdrawal from concern with sensory experience; a deeper involvement with skilfulness; and a signal that a certain process is complete. The main change from the first to the second dhyana are that thought disappears and is replaced by a state of lucidity or in Pali pasada (Sanskrit: prasada), and the monk’s predominant experience is now rapture.

‘Furthermore, with the subsiding of initial thought and sustained thought, the meditator enters into and abides in the second dhyana, which is accompanied by internal peace, (lucid) confidence (pasada)^[1] and unification of the mind,^[2] is free from initial thought and sustained thought, and is filled with the rapture and happiness born of concentration.’^[3]

The Nyingmapa Buddhist School talks about three kinds of faith;[4] lucid confidence or pasada (sometimes called inspired or vivid faith), longing or eager faith; and the deep (trusting) confidence that comes when we feel a thing is completely reliable.

“While confident faith in the three jewels, from the heart’s depth, once their blessings and extraordinary qualities are understood.” [5]

In other words, faith or confidence-trust has a cognitive aspect; a volitional aspect; and a deeply emotional aspect. Of these, the second dhyana is concerned with cognitive conviction; we understand how things work, and what we need to do.

Ratnaguna illustrates the quality of pasada in an image. He says that when we first arrive on retreat, it can be difficult to take in the world around us; we are still somewhat preoccupied with whatever we have been doing before the retreat; perhaps we feel regret over some of the things that we have done and this weighs on our conscience. But as we practice meditation in the following days, slowly purifying our mental states, after a few days we might walk out of the shrine room and the world looks amazing. Having purified our karma and clarified our thinking, we experience pasada. We see another person, and bang.

‘It is as if you’ve never seen this person before; they are completely new to you; fresh. … Like in the springtime you get these leaves don’t you, these tiny little baby leaves that are this incredible colour green, and they are so fresh and innocent and pure you can’t believe it, and you think, how did that happen, incredible.’[6]

Image by anncapictures on Pixabay.

The rapture and happiness that arises in the first dhyana does so on the basis of the monk’s choiceful seclusion (viveka) from being occupied with sensory experience or from falling back into unskilful states of mind. In the second dhyana, because rapture and happiness arise on the basis of concentration—through the unification of all the elements of the psyche—this means they are stronger than in the first, and in fact this more intense ‘selfless’ form of rapture is the predominant ‘flavour’ of the second dhyana.

Rapture can occur when we experience something new and interesting; for instance, when we first start meditating and have this new experience of ourselves, excitement arises in anticipation of what is to come.

‘They pervade, drench, saturate and suffuse this very body with the rapture and happiness born of concentration so that there is no place in their entire body that is not suffused with rapture and happiness.’^[7]

To be ‘rapt’ is to be ‘completely fascinated or absorbed by what one is seeing or hearing;’^[8] the word often signifies being transported by religious feeling or aesthetic experience, as by a piece of classical music. The word comes from the Latin raptus, meaning ‘seized.’  Depending on how much of our psycho-physical organism is seized by this experience, depends the intensity of the rapture, which traditionally has five levels;[9]

‘You’ll recognize the first stage: the sensation of goose pimples as the hairs on your body become erect with pleasure. The second is even more intensely enjoyable: rapture descends upon you in little shocks, like repeated flashes of lightning. In the third, it washes over you again and again, like waves breaking on the shore. In the fourth, it quickly floods every part of your body, like a huge volume of water suddenly entering a sea cave, according to a traditional simile. In the fifth, it is so intensely joyful that it is said to transport you bodily into the air in the miraculous phenomenon of levitation.’ ^[10]

Similar terms which sketch out the territory are; Enthralled; Spellbound; Captivated; Riveted; Gripped; Mesmerized; Enchanted; Entranced; Charmed; Bewitched; Transported; Enraptured; Thrilled; Ecstatic; Rapturous; Blissed Out. In the case of the second dhyana the feeling that we are seized by is the perhaps shocking realization that it is within our own power—through ethical intervention—to produce happiness for ourselves and others. Rapture is both pleasant and energetic, and so it acts as a counterbalance to aversive or low energy states:

‘Rapture helps to control the mental hindrances (nivarana) of both malice (vyapada) and sloth and torpor (styana-middha). A sustained sense of priti is obstructed by malice (vyapada), the second of the five hindrances to dhyana. Priti refreshes both body and mind and manifests itself as physical and mental tranquillity (prasrabdhi). … The most elemental types of priti involve such physical reactions as horripilation (viz., hair standing on end). As the experience becomes ever more intense, it becomes “transporting rapture,” which is so uplifting that it makes the body seem so light as almost to levitate. Ultimately, rapture becomes “all-pervading happiness” that suffuses the body and mind, cleansing it of ill will and tiredness.’^[11]

Throughout the first dhyana the monk’s apperception is gradually refined until it clearly comprehends the issues. Thus established, his views lead to increasingly skilful mental states. At the point at which his apperceptions are completely accurate and his mind is lucid, he entered into the second dhyana because there is no further need for reflection. Once his psyche is in a state of unified concentration, his mind will naturally rest in Right View; it will not have to be ‘held’ there; hence the absence of initial thought in the second dhyana.

Noble silence

The Buddha called the second dhyana the noble silence and he taught his monks that whenever they gathered together, they had two duties: “Either Dharma talk or noble silence.’

His point is that all thought and communication need to be purposefully engaged in cultivating skilful mental states; only if there is something that they are unsure about, should they think about it from a Dharmic perspective, which means returning to the first dhyana if they are meditating, or otherwise discuss it with their peers; once they were clear again, they would naturally return to the second dhyana.

‘In the second dhyana, concentration is so pure that you experience no thought whatever. There is thought in the first dhyana, but it’s very subtle and is settled on the meditation object. Crossing from the first into the second dhyana is to drop into a more lucid absorption which, apart from a subtle mindfulness of the state you are in, is thought-free. The second dhyana is a state of very great inspiration in which you are sustained by blissful mental and spiritual refreshment that wells up inside, like an underground spring flowing into a calm lake.’^[12]

The precise simile which the Buddha gives is as follows;

‘Suppose, there was a deep lake whose waters well up from below. It would have no inlet for water from the east, from the west, from the north or from the south, nor would it be replenished from time to time with showers of rain. Yet a current of cool water does well up from the depths of the lake and pervades, drenches, saturates and suffuses the whole lake, so that there is no place in the entire lake that is not suffused with cool water.

 

‘In the same way, the practitioner pervades, drenches, saturates and suffuses this very body with the rapture and happiness born of concentration, so that there is no part of their entire body that is not suffused with rapture and happiness.’^[13]

The imagery of the deep lake with no inlets except the cool spring welling up from below suggests still experience un-distracted by input from the outside, a stillness so pleasurable that we are reluctant to come out of it and jarring if we are forced out of it. There is no feeling of needing to add anything to our experience (the soap powder and water are perfectly blended). And into this precious concentrated state there seeps an upwelling element, coming as it were from outside of ourselves, ‘something inspired is sort of bubbling up all the time as though you’ve tapped some inexhaustible source of inspiration and nourishment.’^[14] Sangharakshita associates the second dhyana with the figure of the artist (or other creative);

It is unusual for this degree of inspiration to arise spontaneously outside meditation, but there are rare individuals, naturally blessed with vast and elevated minds, whose experience is just this. There are bound to be individuals in the world who at times dwell in this sort of state without even hearing about meditation. In classical times, artists and poets called to the Muses, goddesses who bestow inspiration. The person in a state of deep inspiration is united with higher forces of the imagination, and they are experienced as outside the conscious personality, as when prophets or yogins receive instruction from a deeper level of consciousness.”^[15]

To perform any creative act the artist has to manifest a learning attitude; and be willing to be ‘imprinted’ by their subject matter, prefigured by a sense of awe and wonder. They do not approach their subject as if they already know what is there; as if it is really possible to place one’s experience in a conceptual box and be done with it. Concepts are useful, but as descriptors they only represent what the mind can encompass, not those mysteries that are beyond, and which therefore can only be groped towards using art and symbol. Inspiration appears as a force from outside of oneself; think of Aristotle’s Eureka moment in the bath, or Mozart’s description on his creative process;

‘When I am entirely alone … or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them.’^[16]

While a person who has been practising the metta bhavana and has attained the first dhyana will have the will to reach out to living beings and make a difference to their world, a person on emerging from the second dhyana will be that much more inspired to do so.

In dependence on rapture there arises calming down (prasrabdhi)

The chapter goes on to explore the third dhyana.

^[1] Sarah Shaw translates ajjhattam sampasadanam as ‘internal peace and confidence’, where ajjhattam means ‘inwardly’; sam means ‘complete or total’; and pasada means ‘serene faith’ or ‘lucid confidence.’

^[2] Sarah Shaw translates cetaso ekodibhavam as ‘unification of the mind’, where cetaso means ‘of the mind (both mental and emotional); eka means ‘one’; odhi means ‘putting down, fixing, i.e. boundary, limit’; and bhava means ‘condition, nature, becoming.’ Thus, cetaso ekodibhavam literally means ‘the limiting of the mind and emotions to one boundary.’

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

[4] ‘Faith in Nyingma Buddhist Dharma.’ Note 17. Wikipedia. Accessed 11 June 2022. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_in_Nyingma_Buddhist_Dharma

[5] Ibid.

[6] ‘Great Faith, Great Wisdom.’ Ratnaguna, 2014 European Men’s Convention of the Triratna Buddhist Order. Free Buddhist Audio. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roJa1-Zedkc

^[7] Samannaphala Sutta. Translation by Sarah Shaw.

^[8] ‘Rapt’—Completely fascinated or absorbed by what one is seeing or hearing. Current meaning; Transported by religious feeling. Oxford.

[9] See Buddhaghosa. (1975) Visuddhimagga IV, 94, trans. Na?amoli. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy. p149.

^[10] Kamalashila. (2012) ‘Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight.’ Windhorse. Chapter 6.

[11] ‘Priti.’ Buswell Jr., Robert E. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

^[12] Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight. Chapter 6.

^[13] Samannaphala Sutta. Translation by Sarah Shaw.

^[14] Sangharakshita. Right Effort lecture. p7.

https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/texts/lecturetexts/052_Right_Effort.pdf

^[15] Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight. Chapter 6.

^[16] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wikipedia. Accessed 12 June 2022.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart

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