As a Thai who grew up around Theravada Buddhism, spent one month being a novice at the age of 9, meditation is rooted in my instinct, Like most people, whenever we want to do something such as studying or relieving stress, we often cling to the idea of meditation, I did the same from time to time since 9 years old but nothing special, each meditation session can last only 5-15 minutes max , my mind was so wandering, just like everyone else.
In 2023 after coming back to Canada from a family trip in Thailand, we went to Newfoundland to visit my wife family, my in-laws house is in the wood, they are helping with my two young daughters so it left me free and wandering, there was not much to do in the winter there, so I had an urge to start doing meditation again. Instead of sitting down, closing my eye, and trying fight with my mind wandering like a monkey and lose the battle just like every other times, I had a game plan this time. I recalled one of my monk friend used to mention about Luang Por Pramote Pramojjo whose teaching is around mind observation (Cittanupassna). I started listening to a few of his teaching video on his foundation youtube channel. and I also learned from other Thai forest monks such as Luang Por Phut Thaniyo, Luang Por Chah Subhaddo, Luang Ta Maha Bua, Luang Pu Dune Atulo, etc. and more..
Teachings that helped me
There are interesting key aspect of Luang Por Pramote’s teaching that I find it has helped me in my daily practice as follow
Luang Por Teaching
Luang Por doesn’t teach a particular way of meditation directly, there are at least 40 ways of meditation as taught by Buddha (Kammathana 40), and in fact there are many more way other than described in the Pali Canon. The key for entering Jhana (Appana Samadhi) is to keep your attention on one object, in a calm and happy way, without letting it create greed, anger, or delusion.
Every person has different ways of meditation. Some might like Kasina (Looking at objects, light, water etc.), Mantra or Anapanasati are also good because you do not need extra equipment such as candle or objects, you use your breath. People who tend to be anger might work well with Metta, People who has sexual addiction might work well with Asupa Kammatha (Focusing on Corpses) or thinking about death (Marana Nusati), People who are knowledgeable on human anatomy can even scan each muscle groups, organs, bones. Anything that you can pivot your mind from wandering outwards to inwards and maintaining one-pointedness of mind (Ekaggata)
Luang Por once said instead of letting your mind wandering around and let it thinking endlessly, you set up a only one topic for your mind to think about it, that topic must lead your mind to one-pointedness of mind.
My reflections
Besides using Anapanasati as my default Kammatthana, the following Kammatthana works for me, depending on how my mind feels, my mind chooses Kammathana by itself. It is also a skill to pick the right Kammathana to calm down and fight with different feeling you have each day. Luang Por once said, For Samatha Meditation (Concentration meditation), you need to be adaptive, one Kammatthana might not work every time.
Repeating a mantra, such as ‘Buddho’, in your mind – this method is popular among the Thai forest monk, and suggested by Luang Ta Maha Bua. I myself prefer Anapanasati which uses my breath.
Metta – Works well when you are super anger or you had a bad day fighting with someone.
Marana-nusati (thinking death, everyone in this world will all die in next 100 years etc.) – Great for fighting greed, also rust (sexual desire)
Asupa Kammatha (Focusing on Corpses) – Great for fighting with sexual desire, you can watch some auto-spy videos than use that memories (sanna) in as your Kammathana.
Sanghaguna (The noble qualities of the Sangha) – Some days, my mind is just drawn to my monk teacher in Thailand, so I just think about the qualities of my thai forest monk teachers as described in the Recollection of the Sangha.
Kasina – It’s not recommended by the forest monk, as you pivot your focus outwards from within your body, which can be dangerous while you reach Upajara-samadhi, when you see Nimitta. (I wont go into details in this article). It is recommended that you seek a Kammathana teacher if you want to do Kasina.
Luang Por Teaching: Abstrain the five basic moral precepts (5 Sila)
My reflections: The 5 basic precepts is so crucial to keep your mind calm and peaceful. I dont think I have to explain anymore.
Luang Por Teaching
Stay mindfulness from when you wake up until you go to bed, the only time you aren’t able to practice is when you are sleeping. To stay mindfulness, you need something to anchor your mind (Vihāra Dhamma), so when your mind drifts into thoughts and feeling, you can realize that you are thinking again. Anapanasati is a great tool as you use your breath to keep your mind anchored, as you need Observe thoughts, feelings within your mind and body. Whenever you catch yourself thinking (mind wandering), and you forget your breathe, start it over again. The more you practice, the better your sati (awareness) will be. Sati is when you can recognize that your mind is thinking, and has lost its anchors in the Vihara Dhamma (such as your breathe etc.)
My reflections
Luang Por’s mindfulness teaching is the heart of this article. It is the key that helped me improve my meditation. For me, besides day-to-day thoughts and other feelings such as greed or anger that arise sometimes, I tend to be driven by sexual craving, so I was usually thinking about sex whenever my mind wandered, from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep. I started practicing mindfulness, observing my thoughts and feelings throughout the day while still living my normal life as a programmer by day and a father by night. From the beginning, my mind drifted very frequently, and it took a moment to realize that I was thinking. But the more I practiced, the more I could catch myself thinking, and it took less time to realize I was thinking — the more samma-sati (Right Mindfulness) I gained. I also gradually built up my concentration (samadhi) as I stayed with my mindful breath all day, observing my thoughts and feelings (Anapanasati).
In Buddism, the different between sati (mindfulness) and samma-sati (right mindfulness which is part of the Noble Eightfold Path) are:
Typical Mindfulness is when you are being present or aware of what’s happening right now
Right Mindfulness is when you are aware of your body, mind and feelings and phenomena in a clear, non-delude way.
How do I meditate ?
I followed the way Luang Por meditates by using Anapanasati and Buddhānussati together
– Step 1: Think the word Bud as you breathe in.
– Step 2: Think the word Tho as you breathe out.
– Step 3: Count each breath.
– Repeat these steps, slowly increasing the count from 1 up to 100.
This works well for me. In Anapanusati suttra, There is no mention about using other mantra such as thinking about the word in you mind as you are breathing in-out. This is something that are sometimes taught by Thai Forest Monk, by introducing another Kammathana methods helps anchor your mind, but do not medidate with more than 3 Kammathana. So to break down the method I use:
First : Anapanasati (the breathe)
Second: Buddhanussati (think the word Bud as breathing in and Tho as breathing out)
Third: Counting numbers
Why extra Kammatha ?
By having extra Kammathana from the beginning helps anchor your mind from the beginning of the sitting when your mind are turbulence and wandering. Sometime, if you start off just observing your breathe like typical Anapanasati, you might get lost into your thought easily. having extra Kammathana helps anchor your mind just like a boat that is tied to 3 ropes instead of 1 rope in a wavy ocean. When your mind start calming down, it will gradually drop each kammathana by its own, eventually, they will be only your breathe in and out left. This is a good sign that your mind is getting more calm and peaceful.
You can use any word, not only limited to “Bud-dho”, “Dham-mo”, or “San-gho”; you can use the name of your God or something you deeply respect. As a Buddhist, we feel calm when we think about the Buddha, but you can adapt this to something else that works better for you. I also found that using two words or more helps anchor my mind better than using only one word, especially when my mind is wandering a lot. Longer words work better because there is less opportunity for your mind to drift — it stays focused on repeating those words with each in-breath and out-breath.
As for the counting technique, you can repeat 1–10 and then reverse 10–1 as well. This is simply a tool to keep your mind occupied so it doesn’t wander.
Luang Por Phut Thaniyo once advised one of his student monk, who could not stop thinking about his girlfriend, to mentally repeat the name of his girlfriend as a mantra during meditation.
If you catch yourself thinking and losing focus from your Kammathana, such as counting or repeating your chosen word (e.g., Bud-dho), then simply return to your Kammathana. But if you notice that your mind has become calmer and more peaceful, and you naturally stop counting or repeating the word, you don’t need to go back to the counting or mantra. Instead, just focus on your breath.
Counting or thinking of words are only conceptual realities (sammuti). They are human conceptual thinking and not ultimate realities. Ultimate realities (paramattha dhamma)—such as the direct experience of your breath in Anapanasati, or the feeling of loving-kindness in Metta—can be directly observed. To enter Jhana, the mind must let go of conceptual thinking and remain with ultimate realities alone.
What about my meditation posture ?
I cannot sit in the classic Buddhist postures on the floor due to the tightness of my hamstrings, my favourite position is to cross my legs (Burmese/ quarter lotus) and sit on a recliner chair or a sofa, I love it because it supports my back while I can still maintain my back straight posture. and I can stretch my legs out or hang my legs down later, if I have an urge to change the posture.
If I want go for a Jhana or Samatha Meditation which would take 30 minutes to 2 hours for each session, I prefer to sit down on a sofa or a recliner chair, cross my leg first. and when the pain kicks in, usually when it passes 45 minutes mark, I would embrace with the pain for a bit then I would stretch out my legs or hang my legs down. Its all about controlling and maintaining your focus and concentration, not your body. I have done quite a few times stretching the legs out or hanging. Most of the time, it didn’t impact the state of meditation or caused my mind to withdraw from Jhana.
From my experience , however, there are benefits of the classic Buddhist postures that I discovered (Lotus Posture). Firstly, it is better to maintain sati (mindfulness), you won’t fall asleep easily, or even if you do. You will wake yourself up when you begin to doze off, and your head will node up and down.
Secondly, Lotus or even half Lotus posture helps locking you to maintain the sitting posture. When you get into higher Jhana such as Jhana 4th, your mind loses connection to your body, those posture helps you to maintain the sitting position, especially the full Lotus (I cannot do it, I can do half, but still not so comfortable). Lot of times, I see my upper body almost lies flat on top of my crossed legs, when I lose connection to my body (The connection between your mind and your body is shutting down, so your body became limb, but your mind (sati / mindfulness) is still waking up inside you can see still observing your body), or sometime when I regain my awareness of my mind, then my body. (I probably fell asleep as usual)
For me, the key is to make myself comfortable but not too comfortable that will put me to sleep later; If your body aren’t comfortable, and all your focus is pointing on the discomfort and your posture so you can meditate your mind to calm and relax state that your mind can cling to and able to maintain one-pointedness of mind , then it might prevent you from entering Jhana.
Maintain equanimity
My teacher gave me this key practice in Thai which is “ดู รู้ เฉย” which can be translated to “Observe and learn how the body and mind function, along with the arising of mental and natural phenomea, with eqaunimity”. This is his most common frequnctly answer from him to my questions and curiousity about things I experienced during Samatha and Vipassana meditation. I will not go into the detail, but the key for Jhana is to maintain equanimity.
When you are getting into deeper state of meditation such as Upacara-samadhi (very close to Jhana state), it is a new territory within your mind that you have just discovered, you will experience plenty of new phenomena that you have never experience before, such as thought, light, sounds (for some individuals). Sometimes you can expect to see white or golden bright light, some white or black tunnel, white holes, wormholes, you name it. This is the state where your mind creates Nimitta (illusion), as for Thai Forest teachers, it is recommended to turn your attention inward, stay mindfulness and equanimity to whatever your mind creates in Nimitta, you observe whatever you see as it is. It’s not recommended follow the light or the tunnel, because you dont know what you gonna see at the end of the tunnel: ghost, angel, you see future, your past. This is one of the a dangerous part of getting into Jhana, as you will have to pass Upajara-Samathi state before getting into the higher state where you can expect some peacefulness. Staying with your Kammathana, such as your breath, helps keeping your mind inwards, and not get distracted by the external phenomena.
Your mind can create unlimited amount of Nimitta as per what you have collected in your mind for years and years or lifes. whatever you see in Nimitta is not thing worth thinking about it for trying to find the meaning of it. It’s very common for me to see weird or extravagant Nimitta when I am super tired, or lacking of sleep like in early morning. etc. It is recommended to pivot your attention inwards to within your mind and body. It is also explain why Kasina isnt recommended because your mind focus outwards. Anapanasati might be safer Kammathana as your focus is on your breath.
Your curiosity and excitement can be the enemy for your success as well, it is very normal if you observe excitement and curiosity when your mind is progressing into a higher states of meditation, or you are probably wondering if you are there yet, sort of this feeling arise. Just stay equanimity when these inner thought or inner feeling (it’s created from your within mind, it isn’t you; until you can differentiate whether its the mind who thinks or you think. This is Vipassana knowledge. You can ignore this for now.)
Things that I’ve found helpful from my own experience
- Don’t watch too many movies, Netflix especially social media such as Instragram, Facebook, etc. Don’t collect unnecessary memories (Sanna). Our mind is the most complicated hard disk, your memories get saved into your mind storage, the more you see, the more you hear, and the more you think , the more mind wandering you will experience when you start meditation. When you start meditation, your mind usually replays the most interesting event, especially the drama one, that you experienced recently first— I call it the process of flushing your daily memories. Your mind usually has to flush out those memories until your mind becomes more calm. The more you build up and collect emotional events and store in your mind, the longer time it takes to flush those memories; That’s why you mind wandering so much from the beginning of each meditation session.
- Get yourself cozy. Anapanasati and some type of meditation can generate internal heat, it can get super hot easily which only happens when meditate, despite my house indoor temperature is 20 degrees Celsius all year round. When it’s getting too warm, I start itching.
- Ear plugs are useful when you absolutely cannot find a quiet place in your house. I have two kids in my houses, sometimes I can still hear they cry while my wife is taking care of them. Earplug helps zone me out. External sound is the culprit for the first Jhana. I’ve found that ear plugs also help amplify the sound of my breath which helps me concentrate better doing Anapanasati. But in general, I dont like to use earplugs if there is no concern with noise.
I hope you find some of these techniques useful. I plan to write a follow-up article explaining the phenomena of each state of Jhana and the factors for each, as described by Luang Por Phut Thaniyo and Luang Por Lersi Lingdam. I also compared my own progress with these phenomena, which helped me understand and gauge the development of my meditation.
Final Thought:
I spent only two months practicing Jhana, and I became better at entering Jhana within 10–15 minutes when conditions were favorable. However, I did not engage much in Jhana practice and shifted my focus to Vipassana, as my teacher suggested that I had built up enough Samma-Samathi and it was time to start Vipassana. However, Vipassana needs to be supported by Samma-Samathi, which can be developed through Jhana. We also need to practice Samadhi, such as Jhana, to purify the mind and develop equanimity, so that in Vipassana we can see things as they truly are, without attachment. Vipassana demands a lot of mental energy, and when I need a break to recharge, Jhana is a great tool for building Samma-Samathi. Vipassana and Samadhi need to support each other. I just want to say that there is a greater happiness than the happiness from Jhana—it is the happiness from Vipassana Panna; when you understand the Dhamma and the nature of things through the insight of your mind, it will eventually lead you to the end of suffering.