B FLAVOURS OF JHANA

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In Buddhist meditation, jhāna refers to deep states of meditative absorption, where the mind becomes unified, calm, and collected. The Pāli Canon and later commentaries describe multiple flavours or levels of jhāna, each with distinctive qualities. These are sometimes called rūpa-jhānas (form jhānas) and arūpa-jhānas (formless jhānas).

Here’s an overview of their “flavours” or experiential tones:

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The Four Rūpa Jhānas (Form Absorptions)

1. First Jhāna

   • Flavour: Rapture, excitement, relief from distraction.

   • Factors: Applied thought (vitakka), sustained thought (vicāra), rapture (pīti), pleasure (sukha), and one-pointedness (ekaggatā).

   • Feels like: An initial wave of joy and energetic uplift, the mind finally settling and enjoying freedom from restlessness.

2. Second Jhāna

   • Flavour: Deep joy, steadier happiness, stillness.

   • Factors: Rapture, pleasure, and one-pointedness (no longer needing applied and sustained thought).

   • Feels like: More effortless and serene than the first; joy floods the body without the effort of holding focus.

3. Third Jhāna

   • Flavour: Equanimous contentment, more subtle happiness.

   • Factors: Pleasure (sukha), one-pointedness, mindfulness, equanimity beginning to emerge.

   • Feels like: A quieter, stable happiness, less bubbly than the second jhāna, more peaceful and even.

4. Fourth Jhāna

   • Flavour: Profound equanimity, purity of awareness.

   • Factors: Equanimity (upekkhā), mindfulness, one-pointedness. Neither pleasure nor pain.

   • Feels like: Utter stillness and balance, radiant clarity, no emotional waves—like a crystal-clear sky.

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The Four Arūpa Jhānas (Formless Absorptions)

5. Infinite Space

   • Flavour: Vastness, boundlessness.

   • Feels like: Awareness expands into infinite spaciousness.

6. Infinite Consciousness

   • Flavour: Limitless awareness.

   • Feels like: Awareness itself recognized as infinite and unbounded.

7. Nothingness

   • Flavour: Profound emptiness, absence.

   • Feels like: The sense that there is nothing at all—vast stillness without “something.”

8. Neither Perception nor Non-Perception

   • Flavour: Subtle, nearly imperceptible awareness.

   • Feels like: A very refined, almost indiscernible state—awareness so subtle it can hardly be called perception.

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✨ In practice: meditators often describe the jhānas as having distinct “flavours,” shifting from energetic joy to serene happiness, to profound equanimity, and then to subtler immaterial dimensions of mind.

Would you like me to also show how different traditions (like Theravāda vs. Zen vs. Tibetan) interpret the “flavours” of jhāna differently?

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“I regard consciousness as primary. I regard matter as derivative of consciousness

MAX PLANCK 

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AUTUMN ORCHARD