I want to discuss an aspect of developing insight through meditation that I haven’t heard from any other teacher, but I think it’s crucial if you’re interested in where Buddhist meditation can lead. Before diving in, let’s cover some background.
Buddhist meditation traditionally involves two main approaches: tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassana). Tranquility aims at calming and steadying the mind, fostering peace and joy. The resulting state is called jhana or absorption. Most references to meditation in Buddhist scriptures focus on this aspect. The Buddha described jhana as “the path to Awakening.”
Insight, on the other hand, involves closely examining our experiences to realize that we have no substantial, permanent self. The early scriptures, which are closest to the Buddha’s original teachings, don’t distinguish tranquility and insight as separate types of meditation. Instead, they are seen as complementary, working synergistically to enhance one another.
The usual interpretation is that tranquility steadies the mind, enabling it to observe experiences closely through insight. An analogy is that while an ordinary flashlight can’t cut steel due to scattered light waves, a laser (concentrated light waves) can penetrate metal. Similarly, tranquility focuses the mind, allowing it to cut through delusion.
However, I believe this explanation misses something crucial. Tranquility itself fundamentally changes how we relate to our being. Absorption in tranquility is, in a sense, also a form of insight practice.
When developing tranquility, we experience jhana. As the mind calms, we stop getting caught up in stories and start paying close attention to our body, feelings, and emotions. We begin to experience the body less as a solid object and more as energy— a pleasurable, tingling aliveness. Even substantial physical sensations, like the knees touching the floor, dissolve into twinkling pinpoints of ever-changing sensation.
As we go deeper into absorption, we become more engrossed in joy. In everyday life, we might describe where joy is felt in relation to the body, often centered on the heart. But in deep absorption, joy becomes the entire experience, unattached to any specific body part. Joy changes constantly, making our whole experience one of constant change.
This transformation from seeing our body as solid to experiencing it as a flickering constellation of sensations raises the question: Where is the stable, permanent self in all this? It becomes clear that such a self is impossible, and our belief in it disappears.
So, concentration and absorption contribute to insight by dissolving the illusion of a solid self, revealing only glittering points of sensation. This disappearance doesn’t mean we’ve lost anything; instead, we’ve shed a burdensome illusion, resulting in a joyful sense of freedom.
I guide people in experiencing jhana step-by-step. It’s not a mystical state reserved for elite meditators. With the right steps, anyone can achieve jhana naturally and easily. Even before it fully manifests, we notice our experiences becoming less substantial, which greatly supports insight practice.