..續本文上一頁ses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and ideation — feel spacious and clear, with no physical image acting as the focal point of your concentration. If your powers of discernment are weak, you may mistake this for nibbana, but actually it”s only a level of arupa jhana.

　　Once you know and see this, go on to the next level. Let go of the sense of space and emptiness, and pay attention to whatever preoccupation is left — but attention on this level is neither good and discerning, nor bad and unwise. It”s simply focused on awareness free from activities. This level is called viññanañcayatana jhana, absorption in the sense of unbounded consciousness. If you aren”t discerning, you may mistake this for nibbana, but it”s actually only a level of arupa jhana.

　　Once you know this, make your focus more refined until you come to the sense that there is nothing at all to the mind: It”s simply empty and blank, with nothing occurring in it at all. Fix your attention on this preoccupation with "Nothing is happening," until you are skilled at it. This is the third level of arupa jhana, which has a very subtle sense of pleasure. Still, it”s not yet nibbana. Instead, it”s called akiñcaññayatana jhana, absorption in the sense of nothingness.

　　Now focus on the subtle notion that says that there”s nothing at all, until it changes. If you don”t withdraw, but keep focused right there, only awareness will be left — but as for awareness on this level, you can”t really say that it”s awareness and you can”t say that it isn”t. You can”t say that it”s labeling anything and you can”t say that it”s not. You can”t yet decide one way or another about your preoccupation. The mind”s powers of focused investigation at this point are weakened, because an extremely refined sense of pleasure has arisen. You haven”t searched for its causes and, when you”re in this state, you can”t. So you fall into the fourth level of arupa jhana: neva-sañña-nasaññayatana jhana, absorption in the sense of neither perception nor non-perception, a state in which you can”t say that there”s any act of labeling left, and you can”t say that there”s not.

　　So when the mind changes from one of these stages of awareness or points of view to another, keep close track of it. Be fully aware of what it”s doing and where it”s focused, without letting yourself get caught up with the refined sense of pleasure that appears. If you can do this, you”ll be able to let go of all sankhara dhamma: all things fashioned and conditioned.

　　The four levels of arupa jhana are nothing other than the mind dwelling on the four types of mental phenomena (nama). In other words, the mind starts out by getting caught up with a sense of pleasure and well-being that isn”t focused on any object or image, but is simply an empty, spacious feeling (vedana). This is the first level of arupa jhana. On the second level, the mind is caught up with the act of consciousness (viññana). It”s focused on an empty sense of awareness as its object — simply the act of consciousness happening over and over continuously, without end. This is called absorption in the sense of unbounded consciousness, i.e., being stuck on the act of consciousness. On the third level of arupa jhana, the mind is caught up with the act of mental fashioning (sankhara), which merely arises and passes away. Nothing, nothing at all appears as an image, and the mind simply thinks about this over and over again. This is called absorption in the sense of nothingness, i.e., being stuck on mental fashioning. On the fourth level of arupa jhana, the mind is caught up with the act of labeling (sañña), seeing that it can”t say that there is a label for what it has just experie…

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