| Jhana, or meditative absorption, is traditionally regarded as a crucial part of Buddhist practice. “This is the path to Awakening,” were the Buddha’s words, shortly before his Enlightenment as he remembered a childhood experience of meditative absorption. The calmness, the vibrant embodied pleasure, and the heart-felt joy of jhana are described over and over again in the scriptures. And yet few people believe in their capacity to experience these states, and assume that it can only happen on months-long retreats—and perhaps only for other people!
But what if it’s not hard? What if it’s all a matter of knowing how? What if it’s just a question of bringing together a few relatively simple approaches to meditation that lead, step-by-step, toward a state of deep, easeful joy?
On this day-long workshop Bodhipaksa will introduce a three-stage approach to meditation that he’s developed in over the last 20 years, helping us to calm the mind, to enter deeply into a relaxed yet vibrant experience of the body, and to bring joy to the heart. As we follow this path we’ll start to see how it is that jhana is a basis for insight, and why the Buddha recognized that jhana is the path to Awakening.
Bodhipaksa can’t guarantee that you’ll have a jhanic experience on the retreat, but he is confident you’ll notice a distinct shift in that direction, and that you’ll come away with the tools to take you the rest of the way. |
