Same here. At this point I need jhana clarification.

I would be careful of that. Sounds like a cult mentality

​@@cliffmilbrun2803 I experienced 1st jhana completely by accident on my first retreat. Probably because I had zero expectations or preconceived ideas. Once you start wanting it you can forget it. I really don't think reading and learning too much is helpful. The Buddha did not read books or watch videos. It's unnecessary. It can be helpful but if you do it too much or too obsessively it's just more distraction. You won't become enlightened by learning the dhamma in a scholarly way like a university course.

Loss of mindfulness is what causes distraction, not doing of your duties. If what you are pressured to do is not sensuality or ill will or entertainment, then do it mindfully and you will not be distracted.

​@@HillsideHermitage Thank you very much. For the past two days, I have been suffering to a great extent. The reason is my sense of ownership and control in external factors that cannot be owned. I have to decided what career to choose while in college. The only thing I am factoring for my career is helping people and being generous. However, still the idea, " what should I do for my future?" has been very painful.

Correct mindfulness comes out of the sense restraint, not other way around. So if you are struggling in restraining yourself you need to spend more time thinking about the dangers of getting absorbed in the senses. Then you will be properly anchored.

That is the right way to train.

What you are going through is the result of allowing your mind to become established upon an external form of another person, through previously uncheck lust, craving, love, infatuation. So, what you are experiencing after the end of relationship is not the problem, it's the winddown of the problem. How long will that wind down last, depends on how much lust and infatuation and need has been accumulated. There is no quick "understanding" of what/why it happens that would free you from having to go through it. The only thing that you can do is slow down and learn how to operate normally within that pain and loss. Don't endure it for the sake of getting rid of it or spend time allowing your mind to carelessly think about that person. That's how the mind will become used to it and stop resisting it. Once the resistance stops, the pain will cease too.

Your reply helped tremendously and added much needed context .Thankyou

The issue with cities is primarily that people would not be able to effectively practice sense restraint and guard their senses to the extent necessary for the Right view. If you can create an environment that would minimize that pressure and harassment of the senses by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, then correct practice of the Dhamma is possible. Such environment would need to be sustained for long period of time. Years, not months. It takes time to see the mind correctly even if one lives completely withdrawn from the pressures of the cities and people, so it will take much longer if one still lives surrounded by them.

Making an end to suffering is difficult in the best of circumstances. The Buddha( the bodhisatta at the time) and many of his disciples left their good families, their good household lives and went forth into homelessness because it is said that household life is dusty and crowded,....busy, involving many duties. If you cannot leave a situation which you know is obstructive then you can only do the best you can until you can find a more suitable environment. You can keep maintaining and upgrading your levels of renunciation while you are trapped there and in doing so you will begin to see opportunities which will be more conducive to Dhamma practice. Will you be able to achieve sottapatti if you understand anicca? Yes Will your environment make it more difficult to do so? Yes The question is, if your priority is Dhamma practice, what is obstructing you from going forth? Are you in an actual prison, is the external situation really that difficult to leave or is it just because you do not want to make the decision to leave, are you imprisoned by your own choices? If you COULD go forth into a more conducive lifestyle, be that as a monastic or a layperson but choose not to and instead choose to remain in a troublesome environment then even if you practice as much as you can there, still you might be maintaining your decision to not renounce such an environment/lifestyle, i.e you will be holding on to that which you should let go of, while trying to let go of that which you are holding on to. You can contemplate anicca all you want, but if your choices do not emulate that, such contemplations will always be theories even though they are correct theories, they will not bear the necessary fruits.

@@ThaniyoThero Thank you for your response. Your words recall something Venerable Nanavirathera wrote in the preface of a book on Buddhism: "[T]he doctrine of the Buddha is capable of application even today by any Western person who really has the vocation. But the undertaking was never easy, and the number who, in this modern world, will succeed in pursuing it to its conclusion is not likely to be large." Yes, I see that taking renunciation as far as it needs to go for proper Dhamma practice is what needs to be the priority. What is holding me back is that I am not certain that my health would allow me to practice in a hermitage or monastery setting without being a burden on others. For the time being, I must work on being physically and mentally robust enough to leave home and go forth as soon as it becomes feasible.

@@HillsideHermitage I understand. Dhamma practice requires the kind of sustained solitude and restraint that is very difficult to maintain in an unconducive environment such as a city. I often enjoy solitude for short periods but seldom the kind of sustained seclusion where I can be certain that I won't be intruded upon by another person for as long as I don't make an effort to seek company.

​@@flowersarelovesome What about moving to a less crowded area in the meantime? I find living in the countryside, and even some "sleepy" suburbs, much more favorable for renunciant practice. With goodwill

No, you cannot stop the mind (which is one of the senses) from thinking. But you can stop resisting what you are feeling WHILE the mind is thinking.

You don't have to do anything with it. Instead worry about the mind still not being free from sensuality because the full understanding of it hasn't been sufficiently developed.

@@HillsideHermitage Thank you Venerable Ajahn 🙏🙏🙏

That happened to me. It was amazing. Felt like every cell was vibrating and I was floating. I became very attached to this feeling and couldn't stop thinking about it when I meditated. I guess it became a hindrance.

It does sound like 'just sitting' if you ignore the description of the 'gradual training' part. That training does not involve 'just sitting trying to not anticipate anything'. It involves a gradual withdrawal from all unwholesome activities, a renunciation of all acts based on greed, aversion and distraction, a dedication to not act out of craving throughout your day and forever more, while actively contemplating the nature of your existence, with the intention that you will one day no longer be subject to suffering no matter what painful situation arises. If you are interested what that training entails, Step 1- is taking on a set of precepts which help you rein in your bodily, verbal and mental behaviour, so that your activities will not be of the unwholesome kind. Step 2- To restrain, tame and calm your senses by not letting them consume anything that will perpetuate their unretrained, wild, agitated state. Step 3- To eat only for the right reason, which is the removal of hunger so that you can practice the holy life and not for fun, distraction or any other sensual reason. Step 4- Devotion to being wakeful and being on guard against acting out of any unwholesome intentions throughout the entire day. Step 5 - Protecting the mindfulness and discernment that has arisen on account of the previous steps by simple maintaining the previous steps. Step 6- Go into seclusion or live a very secluded lifestyle so as to amplify the mind so that you may practice...Step 7- which is the abandoning of the hindrances. Step 8- is then the practice of Jhana or other similar exercises, which is pretty much effortless if you got to step 7 succesfully. Any further steps then will entail a mind which is so purified that if it is directed towards understanding the four noble truths, it will succeed with very little effort.

It's more like the meditation is a litmus test for how you have worked before the sitting. Like a feedback loop of sorts

@Harpreet Singh, Are you a surgeon? how about coming up with a question that arise from your own experience... Effortless mindfulness is a level that arise when you have trained your mind for a long time. This the result of long periods of training undertaken beforehand. To trrain the mind is like other kind of training, you have to devote time to only do the training, not do two things at a time.