Unit 1 | Starting the practice

In this first session, we'll look at how the mind can be restored by the five jhana factors: applying the mind, exploring, joy, happiness, and unification of mind. We'll look at examples in daily life where we can see those factors operating, and also how sometimes it's a good time to sit in seclusion in meditation and cultivate these factors by directing the mind towards a single meditation object.

Unit 2 | Applying and exploring

In this session, we'll look particularly at vitakka: how we apply the mind; and vicara: how we explore and sustain attention on objects and tasks.

As we look at vitakka and vicara, we're first of all going to look at some aspects of how we can recognize health, wholesomeness, and cheerfulness in our own minds. The understanding of Buddhist psychology is that the human mind has the predisposition to be healthy, wholesome, flexible, and happy. So we're going to start off this module with some discussion about how such a mind is described, how we can feel it ourselves and how we can recognize it in our own experience.

Unit 3 | Joy

In this unit, we're looking at piti, joy, and the various depths and levels of joy. We'll be looking at the joy we can experience in daily life, and the joy that arises in meditation.

Joy is the fourth of the seven factors of awakening. It's considered essential for awakening. Many of us who became interested in Buddhism at the end of the 20th century could sometimes forget the joy aspect. We were very interested in notions and concepts. But joy is literally the central factor of awakening. As Walpola Rahula said, "Without joy, there is no Buddhist path".

Unit 4 | Happiness

Alongside joy, we find a calmer and more refined happiness, sukha. In many ways it is rather more subtle, more mellow, and perhaps more sustainable. It's an enduring quality. We may experience this as a contentment that is less dependent on conditions being just right.

One of the stages of the Anapanasati Sutta is: breathe in experiencing happiness, and breathe out experiencing happiness. Bring a moment of happiness to mind. And see if you can introduce that sense of ease and lightness into how you watch the breath.

Unit 5 | Unification of mind

We now come on to our last jhana factor, cittassekaggata, unification or one-pointedness. We'll explore this factor in the light of the other four—how stillness and concentration can come together in daily life with mindfulness. This becomes a mindful stillness. In the meditation, we find that mindfulness deepens and increases as the stillness does.

We'll also look at how these five jhana factors can work together as a whole as the mind becomes unified.

Unit 6 | Deeper into stillness

In this unit we're going to look at the state of jhana—if it is a state—and explore some ways it's described and how it fits into the larger Buddhist path. So is jhana a state, something that we reach for and attain? Perhaps, but we might also think of jhana as like coming home: arriving somewhere familiar that is peaceful, restful, and still.

In South and Southeast Asia, jhana is taught as something that needs nourishing and a good soil to grow in. We need to make really sure that we are asking for peace and not demanding it. This is almost a kind of protection in samatha-based meditation. We practice with some humility and a willingness to open ourselves to what is offered.