The Fourth Jhāna

The fourth jhāna has two factors.

Ekaggatā: Your object becomes absolutely one.

Upekkhā: You can let go of all thoughts of past and future; the five hindrances are completely cut away. The mind is solitary, clear, and radiant. The six properties – earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness – become radiant. The heart feels spacious and clear, thoroughly aware all around through the power of mindfulness and alertness.

As mindfulness becomes tempered and strong, it turns into intuitive knowledge, enabling you to see the true nature of body and mind, sensations and mental acts, past, present, and future.

When this happens, if you aren’t skilled, you can become excited or upset. In other words, you may develop pubbenivāsānussati-ñāṇa, the ability to remember previous lives. If what you see is good, you may get pleased, which will cause your mindfulness and alertness to weaken. If what you see is bad or displeasing, you may get upset or distressed, so intent on what you remember that your sense of the present is weakened.

Or you may develop cutūpapāta-ñāṇa: The mind focuses on the affairs of other individuals, and you see them as they die and are reborn on differing levels. If you get carried away with what you see, your reference to the present will weaken.

If you find this happening, you should take the mind in hand. If anything pleasing arises, hold back and stay firm in your sense of restraint. Don’t let yourself fall into kāmasukhallikānuyoga, delight. If anything bad or displeasing arises, hold back – because it can lead to attakilamathānuyoga, distress. Draw the mind into the present and guard against all thoughts of delight and distress. Keep the mind neutral.

This is the middle way, the mental attitude that forms the Path and gives rise to another level of awareness in which you realize, for instance, how inconstant it is to be a living being: When things go well, you’re happy and pleased; when things go badly, you’re pained and upset.

This awareness enables you truly to know the physical sensations and mental acts you’re experiencing and leads to a sense of disenchantment, termed nibbidā-ñāṇa. You see all fabrications as inconstant, harmful, stressful, and hard to bear, as lying beyond the control of the heart.

At this point, the mind disentangles itself: This is termed virāga-dhamma, dispassion. It feels no desire or attraction; it doesn’t gulp down or lie fermenting in sensations or mental acts, past, present, or future. It develops a special level of intuition that comes from within. What you never before knew, now you know; what you never before met with, now you see.

This happens through the power of mindfulness and alertness gathering in at a single point and turning into āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa, enabling you to disentangle and free yourself from mundane states of mind – in proportion to the extent of your practice – and so attain the transcendent qualities, beginning with stream entry.

This reflection by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo is from the Thai Forest Ajaans book Basic Themes: Four Treatises on Buddhist Practice, “The Path, VIII. Right Concentration,” pg. 80-85, translated from the Thai by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.