Awashed With Jhanas!
First Absorption
Like when a proficient bather pours bath powder into a basin, sprinkling it little by little with water. They knead it until the ball of bath powder is soaked and saturated with moisture, through and through, inside and out; yet no moisture drips from it.
—You, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enter and remain in the first absorption! While placing the mind and keeping it connected, you pour over, permeate, fill completely, and pervade your body with rapture and bliss born of seclusion, so that there’s no part of your body that’s untouched with rapture and bliss born of seclusion.
Second Absorption
Like a deep pond fed by a spring, with no inlet from any direction, nor a sky that rains hard or often enough; yet streams of cool water pours over, permeates, fills completely, and pervades throughout the pond, so that there is no part of the pond that’s untouched with the cool water.
—You, with the placing of the mind and keeping it connected are stilled, enter and remain in the second absorption! With internal clarity and mind at one, without applying the mind yet keeping it connected. You pour over, permeate, fill completely, and pervade your body with rapture and bliss born of immersion, so that there’s no part of your body that’s untouched with rapture and bliss born of immersion.
Third Absorption
Like a pool with lotuses. Some of them sprout and grow in the water without ever rising above it, thriving underwater. From the tip to the root it’s poured over, permeated, filled completely, and pervaded with cool water. There’s no part of it that’s untouched with cool water.
—You, with the fading away of rapture, enter and remain in the third absorption! Where you meditate with equanimity, mindful and aware, personally experiencing the bliss of which the noble ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, one meditates in bliss.’ You pour over, permeate, fill completely, and pervade your body with bliss free of rapture, so that there’s no part of your body that’s untouched with bliss free of rapture.
Fourth Absorption
Like someone sitting wrapped from head to foot with white cloth. There’s no part of the body that’s untouched with white cloth.
—You, with the giving up of pleasure and pain and the disappearance of former happiness and sadness, you enter and remain in the fourth absorption! Without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness, you sit pervading your body thoroughly with pure bright mind, so that there’s no part of the body that’s untouched with pure bright mind.
(DN 2)
