first glimpse of jhana

When I was on a ten-day silent retreat, I had climbed to the highest I had ever been. My mind was really almost still, but the thing stopping me from moving further was a low rustle of sense desire in the bottom of my mind.

It was impossible to quieten my mind further and later I realise it was being held back in this way by my sense desires at this moment that, at this moment, set me on the path of the Anagami. The path I am still on today.

At the retreat we had learnt about a teacher in the Burmese school of Buddhism called Mother Sayamagi who had reached the first jhana within minutes of being taught Anapana meditation. She had seen clouds or cotton wool, or something like that.

Well for two very brief instants, as brief as I have ever experienced, I saw a door opening with bright light behind it and also I saw in a separate instant a small blue pearl. Both of these images stick as firmly in my mind today, thirteen years later, as they did back then.

But when I reported this to the retreat teacher he seemed not to believe me. There was no way I could have seen them, he said. I suppose it was either that, or give up his seat to me.

I think there are two sorts of people who appear wise in the dharma; those who have studied the words of the Buddha very well and thoroughly and for a long time, and those who are actually wise in the dharma.

Theory is useless unless it is able to be put into practice. It is not an intellectual challenge, or a beautiful philosophical theory, but rather a daily way of life for, quite literally, life or death reasons.