Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond

What Hacker News says

1. echelon_muskApr 2025
   Happy to see Buddhaghosa on HN!

   On a semi related tangent, I recently listened to the audio book of Ajahn Brahm's Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond. It was pleasantly surprising to hear nimitta spoken about so frequently outside of the Visuddhimagga!

   Ingesting Buddhist commentaries and practice manuals to provide advice and help with meditation is one of the few LLM applications that excite me. I was impressed when I received LLM instructions on how an upāsaka can achieve upacāra-samādhi !

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2. derridaJun 2024
   It is not even access concentration the Jhana 1 description. It is "just" the natural joy that arises from doing wholesome states like ethical behavior or generosity or unconditional love. (Which is good! Really good! just lets not appropriate the term 'jhana')

   It is great people are discovering that there is a happiness within that is not dependent on getting things or things being a certain way and you can increase and cultivate wholesome states that are outside the sensory world. But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body. They are rather like a boat and its wake... the wake is the feelings but the boat is something else - they are the wholesome states. We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable. For instance with metta the boat would be the intention "may I be happy" the feelings are the by-product or wake. Jhana is proper like a boat that suddenly unexpectedly hits the shore... It rocks and blows the mind (and as the mind contains model of the world - it feels like the world shook a bit then froze). A good "geeks guide" is "Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond" written by someone who finished a physics degree at cambridge and spent 9 years with Ajahn Chah.

   If we instead mistake something else for "jhana" like some positive feels, we're going to be stuck cultivating a local maxima. It's not to say the practice is wrong, it's actually quite good. It's just not jhana. We should listen to the professional community just like we listen to the professionals of physics in academia, instead of some posts from people on the internet that have done a few 30 day retreats.

   But please do not call it jhana and have some humility ... these terms are central to some of the okdest institutions in the world and theres a professional community in the dharmic traditions who literally do this full time all over asia.

   If someone wants to hear a competent speaker who has done the necessary time and training at those institutions and is also trained in the conventional university system, someone like Ajahn Brahm (Theoretical Physics Cambridge) Beth Upton (Economics Cambridge) or Shalia Catherine or Sayadaw U Jagara

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3. nprateemAug 2023
   My favourite is Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm.
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4. sheffAug 2016
   "The Mind Illuminated" ( https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Complete-Meditation-... ) is very good, and contains all you need for your practice.

   The author is both a long term meditator and used to be a neuroscience professor. The book teaches meditation in a stage by stage way which is very easy to follow.

   Another excellent book is "Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator's Handbook" (https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Bliss-Beyond-Meditators-H...).

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5. pegasusJun 2012
   There are many schools of thought on how learn meditation, ranging from "just sit!" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikantaza) to very detailed instructions on posture, states of mind, etc. I thought the manual part of "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond" was very well written. Another good one is "Turning the Mind into an Ally".

   Good luck and remember to enjoy the journey!

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6. derridaJun 2024
   I'm not that familiar with them but the people I know that do the traditional jhanas I think some think they are mistaking a profound state called "bhavanga" for jhana. (It's mentioned page 140 of Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm and in the first few pages of Pa Auks book as something often mistaken for jhana and nibanna - a sort of cessation).
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