What is this Sublime Right Concentration?
That Noble Eightfold Way, leading to Nibbāna, is simply this:
Right View, Right Motivation, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood,
Right Effort, Right Awareness and Right Concentration.
But what is Right concentration?
The Buddha explained The 4-fold definition of Right Concentration:
Having eliminated the 5 mental hindrances, mental defects that obstruct
understanding, quite secluded from sensual desires, protected from any
detrimental mental state, one enters and dwells in the 1st jhāna; full of joy
and pleasure born of solitude, joined with directed and sustained thought.
One makes this joy and pleasure born of seclusion drench, saturate, soak,
and suffuse the body, so that no part of the entire body is unperfused by
this intense joy and pleasure! Just as a skilled bath-man puts soap powder
in a copper basin and sprinkling it gradually with water, whips it until the
water soaks and pervades all the soap powder, yet without dripping, so too,
does the noble friend make the joy and pleasure born of solitude permeate
and pervade the entire body!Again, friends, with the stilling of directed
and sustained thought, one enters and dwells in the 2nd jhāna: a calmed
assurance of unification of mind with even deeper joy and pleasure now
born of concentration, devoid of any thought! One makes this exquisite
joy and pleasure born of concentration drench, saturate, soak, & suffuse
the body, so no part of the whole body is unperfused by this profound joy
and pleasure: Just as a lake whose waters welled up from below within it
itself, & it had no other sources neither by showers of rain, then this cool
fount of water welling up from deep within would immerse, fill, & pervade
the entire lake, even and exactly so does one make this joy & pleasure born
of concentration infuse this entire body!Furthermore, friends, with the
fading away of the joy, the friend dwells in even equanimity, just aware &
clearly comprehending, still feeling pleasure in the body, one enters upon
and remains in the 3rd jhāna, regarding which the Noble Ones declare:
"In aware equanimity one dwells in pleasure!" One makes the pleasure apart
from of joy flood, saturate, soak, and suffuse the body, so that there is no
part of one's whole body unperfused by this pleasure divested of joy...
Just as in a lotus pond some lotuses are born, grow and thrive immersed
under the water & the cool water soaks them from their roots to their tips,
so too, does the noble friend make the pleasure divested of joy drench, fill,
flood and pervade this entire body.Finally, friends, with the leaving behind
of both pleasure and pain, and with the prior disappearance of both joy and
sorrow, one enters and dwells in the 4th jhāna; a completely stilled mental
state of awareness, purified by an equanimity of neither-pain-nor-pleasure.
One sits illuminating the body internally with this pure bright mind, so that
there is no part of one's whole body not illuminated by this pure bright mind!
Just as a man were sitting covered from the head down with a white cloth,
so that no part of his whole body was uncovered by this white textile; even
so does one sit encompassing this entire body with a pure bright & radiant
mind, so that there is no part of one's whole body not illuminated by this
pure, bright, and luminous mind...
Comment: No trivial worldly pleasure can ever surpass such sublime bliss!
The Function of Right concentration and its associates is:
Seeing right vs. wrong concentration as right vs. wrong concentration, is right view.
Exchanging wrong concentration with right concentration is right effort.
Right concentration functions as a drill: Focusing, unifying, and penetrating!
Concentration induces the intense Breakthrough!
On how to attain the Jhāna absorptions:
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Details_of_the_Jhana_Absorptions.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Requisites_for_Jhana_Absorption.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/The_Concentration_Ability.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Feeding_Concentration.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Concentration_Samadhi.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/g_m/jhaana.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/IV/Jhana_Absorption.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Samma-Samadhi.htm
Further study of Buddhist Right concentration (Sammā-Samādhi):
Root texts by the Buddha:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/samma-samadhi.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/jhana.html
The Jhānas in Theravādin Buddhist Meditation:
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Wheels/wh_351_353.html
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Wheels/wh351.pdf
Complete Manual on Meditation and Absorption: The Path of Purification:
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/pdfs/PathofPurification2011.pdf
What is Right Concentration?
