Rupajhana

In Buddhism, rūpajhānas (Sanskrit: rūpadhyāna "meditations of form", literally "form meditations") are successive levels of meditation in which the mind is focused on a material or mental object: it is a word frequently used in Pāli scriptures and to a lesser extent in the Mahayana scriptures. Each higher level is harder to reach than the previous one as it relinquishes an attachment to one of the positive experiences of the previous state. The meditations of form are distinguished from arūpajhāna (Skt: arūpadhyāna "formless meditations") which are meditations focused without material or mental objects (i.e., meditations on infinite space, on infinite consciousness, on nothingness, and beyond perception and non-perception).

There are eight jhānas in total, out of which the first four are rūpajhānas, meditations of form. All four rūpajhānas are characterized by ekaggatā (Skt: ekāgratā) which means one-pointedness, i.e. the mind focuses singularly on the material or mental object during meditation.

The four rūpajhānas are:

See also right concentration.

These first four jhānas can be characterized by certain factors called jhānaṅga (Skt: dhyānāṅga) whose presence or absence in each rūpajhāna is summarized in the following table:

The jhānaṅga have the following meanings: vitakka means the noticing of the object of meditation, vicāra means the experiencing of the object, pīti means rapture, sukha means bliss, ekaggatā means one-pointedness of concentration, upekkhā means equanimity.

¯To reach each successive stage of meditation, a factor of attachment in the previous stage is renounced. Such renunciation is aided by a progressive realization of the quality of relative grossness of each of the primary factors characterizing the respective states of jhana absorption, appreciating, in other words, that each factor is in the end a kind of "agitation" of the mind. The first meditation of form includes the three primary factors of the one-pointed noticing and experiencing of the object, rapture in the experience, and bliss in the rapture. In the second meditation of form, the meditator lets go of the relatively gross factors of noticing and experiencing of the object and perceives the rapture and bliss of the one pointedness. In the third meditation of form the person then detaches from the sense of rapture and perceives the one-pointed bliss, a less "agitated" state. In the fourth meditation of form the meditator relinquishes even the quality of bliss and perceives only one-pointed undisturbed equanimity.

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