Piti (Joy)

Q&A: What should one do when Piti arises?

Piti is a very specific joy associated with a state of deep tranquillity. It is often translated with the English words “joy” or “rapture” and is distinguished from the longer-lasting meditative “pleasure” or “happiness” (Pali, Sanrkit: sukha) that arises along with piti. Master Culadasa discusses how it arises and what to do when it does.

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Student: It. So switching the subject a little bit when you're like, this is a technical meditation question. When you're invited, when you're meditating and say PT comes up, what's the instruction there. You just watch it and have equanimity with it and wait until it settles into.

Culadasa: Yeah, allow it to, yes, it's just, okay.

The question is when you're in meditation, thank you very much that when you're in meditation and PT comes up, what is the proper way to react to it? When it first begins to come up, the most important thing is to keep on doing what caused it to come up with joy, meditative. Sorry. I am happiness.

Literally they were TT. Veenstra. But in meditation, it's also a company by appearance of a light often sometimes by sound very often by sensations of energy moving in the body. So from a technical point of view, all of these are part of PT, but the essence of PT is the Joanne that is amongst the first, then the last aspect of it.

So when Fiji first begins to arise, what's most important is to keep on doing what caused it to arise and allow it to, to strengthen. But that doesn't mean ignoring it because the experience of that joy and. Is going to, it has the effect of further enhancing your ability to focus and to stay clear.

The joy itself keeps you alert and the happiness makes it easier for your mind to stay focused. So you don't totally disregard it, but you don't leave what you're doing and go focus on the PT right here. When it becomes strong enough, sometimes you can do that. And you can practice a light form of the jhanas when the 50 becomes, when you're mom.

When the PT comes and you feel it there, and your mind is quite focused and still then you can abandon the breath can take the pleasantness is take the pleasantness, maybe take pleasantness located somewhere in their body, or maybe just take that feeling of happiness. That seems to be rising in your mind and make that your meditation object.

And it will either. When you do that, it will either fade, meaning you've got to go back to doing a practice before I bring it back again. But if it's strong enough and established well enough, when you do that, it will grow more and more intense. And then you can just surrender into it and enter into the first absorb.

Which is where there's I don't need to go on to explaining the genres, but it's the first absorption and you can strengthen your concentration tremendously in that you can sit there for some period of time, whether it's a minute or two or half an hour, absorb. Into the PT. And by doing that, this is a very intense training period in your mind.

And your concentration is going to be significantly improved every time you do that, you're able to do this, so it's worth doing, but ultimately you still want to go back to further developing the concentration, focusing on their breath and letting the PT continue to do. And the first little hints of joy and pleasure that come up will sooner or later be accompanied by strong feelings of energy moving in the body.

And, or a sensation of light behind your closed eyes, which can become very intense and very oh fantastic. Or it can just be some light cords that kind of float around and expand and contract with your grip. It takes different forms, but they can be quite amazing. And other aspects of fatigue now, when that happens, You want to let that continue to develop, because you're going to, you're going to reach a whole new level of PT.

That goes way beyond what you first experienced. And that comes about by just, you've used the PT to enhance your concentration. Now you're going back to using the concentration to let the PT go to the next level. When PTB becomes fully developed, it becomes so intense and so exciting. They almost can't stand to keep sitting there and you can also.

I think that this has gotta be if this isn't the ultimately the list, then I can't imagine what it would be, and it can be that intense, but still the thing to do is to just keep on steadily in your practice and that intensity at both the physical sensations and Mental energy and the joy will begin to succe subside and it will develop in its place, a profound sense of tranquility and a kind of equanimity that the probably beyond what you've experienced before really profound equanimity and that tranquility and equanimity is very important of the seven factors of enlightenment, joy, tranquility, and equanimity constitute 3m.

And they're the first two developed the concentration and the mindful awareness and then a PT and then the tranquility and the equanimity. So then the last two are investigation and diligence. Which are really the application of this. So PT is very important, but how you deal with it, and it's not.

It's not a simple answer. It's you work with it. If you go to it too soon, it's going to go, right? So you go back with some agitation and strengthen it, but you can, when you can go to it, you can use the 50 distract them the concentration, but ultimately you got to continue to develop your concentration and awareness.

And the PT is a side effect. They've got to let develop. And it not actually a side effect so much, but in a sense it was the purpose all along because That PT, that joy is a reflection of your mind becoming unified. Your mind. As I mentioned to you is many different mental processes going on simultaneously all with different functions, all with different agendas and sometimes in conflict with each other.

And even those times in meditation, when your mind is the same sort of calm and still, there's still been all these different processes going on. And that. And not in any sort of coherent, synchronized cooperative way when the more your mind becomes unified in the sense that always different processes are either directed towards the same goal with purpose, or at least aren't conflicting with each other.

Then the strongest. The sense of PT or horizons. So your concentration has been for the purpose of arriving at unification in line. And the PT that arises is the indication that there is a degree of unification that has been achieved. And so you use the PT to further unify the mind because of course, when the mind feels good and happy It stops struggling against itself.

And that's how it strengthens concentration. Our minds are complex enough that there's still the still your mind is not as unified as you think it is. And until you reach that level of PT, that's so strong that, it's just. It feels like it's going to knock you out of your meditation.

And and it does a lot of times you just have to get up and go tell somebody that, oh, I can't believe meditation is fair. No, can I say one thing? Really? I like it happened several years ago. I had one like this experience of joy. And like it took over and it was lasted for quite a while. And I haven't, I wasn't really trying, I didn't know what it was, what was going on and it wasn't trying for it.

And so that was a while ago, a long time ago, but now I've been working with these steps and everything, and I felt coldness coming on my arm the last couple of weeks. And I wasn't sure if it was called this or something else. And then yesterday it came. It came in my arm, but then there was an implosion throughout my body and I thought, oh, that's PT.

And then I thought, oh, PT makes the mind chatter. And cause it was because I started going commenting, starts to narrative. And so then I said, oh, stop that or something. So then I stopped, I let the mental chatter go and then it came back stronger and I thought, oh, that's how you control it. Or you can manage it.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're there. No, the part of your mind that tells the story of your life, can't resist talking to you about this PTA. Can it arise at any stage? It can arise at any stage and some people will start off meditating and now have a strong PT experience and then I'll end up chasing that.

And Some people go a long time and never have it. And I'll hear these other people say, what's the matter with me? Why isn't that happening to me? It what's important. Isn't what. 50 year rises are not on any one occasion. It's whether you learn to create the conditions for unification of mind, and as you get more and more skilled at creating those conditions, PT will arise more and more consistently because that's what it's caused live sound.

So it's more common at later stages as concentration and as your concentration improves, you're more likely to have. Periods of PT and and then what it becomes strong enough and last long, and I see you can make use of it. The first summarizing of PT can often be not recognized because yeah, you said your hand feels cold.

People will feel like, what's happening. There's ants crawling up and down my back, or they'll have this. Itchy sensation all over there. They're their scalp or they'll feel like their body is falling over and check and say no, it isn't, but I feel that way. Or one of the things that happens to me is I sit like this and my thumbs will just start twitching, like crazy.

And my mouth will start to salivate things about him. These unusual physical things that are often it's 4runner. And if you discipline yourself to just stay with the object and let that be, so I found was on Twitch a lot on Twitch. My mouth wants to water, let it wired. My hand feels cold, my hand, field cold, and just keep going.

Then you'll start to get the it'll become stronger and develop more phone. So I have, when I meditate, it's really a strange sensation. And maybe it's what you're talking about. It's my upper body just lifts I can handle it's the best I can describe. So when you go down the hill real quick, when you were a kid, remember in a car, you go down a hill and your stomach would rise.

I feel that, but it's not in my stomach. It's more in the upper torso, it's just a, it's a quick rise. And then it goes down. It's just momentarily that I get that. And it's Can you somehow, part of what we're talking about is a good chance that it is very likely that it is, if it is, as your concentration depends, then you'll probably experience a stronger sense of that.

And you may actually, your body may actually jerk upwards or not happens, so what the, what this is probably, I can't say for certain, but it probably is a foretaste of the particular way that the bodily aspect of PT manifests is going to manifest in you. Is PT then related to the Hindu concept of Kundalini the Kundalini concept.

Can you repeat that? Yeah, it is PT related to the Kundalini. That's a Kundalini. She giving lands Prada. All of these things are, they are the. Physical energy aspect of PT. And if in your meditation practice, you focus on those particularly, some may become much stronger and more evidence, or if you've been doing other things like somebody that does cheat gong a lot, or teach a lot of Chinese people and they do a lot of cheat on and Tai Chi and it's interesting.

They rarely experienced. But they always experienced the energy movements, powerful, and that's what they'll say in a meditation report is wow. The Cine and my body is know, never felt a movie like this before it's not on and so forth. So the other things that you do will predispose it to appearing in particular ways.

And if you. If you were following a Kundalini practice, then your practice is going to direct you to the very earliest sensations of chiefs are going to lead you to focus in such a way that she takes the form of Queensland. Any rising. I'm asking this because in my training as a yoga teacher, way, way back, I was I did Kundalini yoga in the beginning and my teacher didn't make a nice, that was not yet ready.

I had a very bad experience with that conduct Kundalini coming up, like for a year long, I couldn't touch even anything related to yoga, meditation things. My nervous system was like, so I was wondering it's much safe, your meditation experience, the stages of where it goes, then being jumped into it.

And it was a blow up, Okay. It is much safer and reputation and to let it develop on its own without forcing it. One of the things I'll remind you of all these feelings in your body are actually happening in here. Yeah. So keep that in your awareness that it may be convenient to visualize energy currents and sauna and things like that.

But this is just your mind creating a picture to describe sensations that your mind is generating as well. They're all in your mind. I find that the best way to deal with it and meditation is to let it develop and only intervene. There will be what appear to be blockages. You'll feel energy movement and appear to be blocked. And it will be painful. You may feel a blockage in your throat or a lot in your chest, or just, you reach a certain point in your meditation and it's there's just something great.

And you're in your chest or, it can be anywhere in your body and I can move around. Now, when those blockages become distracting to you and keep you from focusing on your meditation, continuing with them, you apply that principle, that energy follows awareness. So if you've got a blockage. And the energy is not moving past there.

Then you direct your attention to there is direct your attention to the energy that's moving. And you just, by, by following it with your mind, you allow it to start moving past that block as, or sometimes you just focus on where the blockage is and meditated on an objective way. And just the fact that your awareness is focused and that part of your minds, body.

This is going to affect the way, the energy, where the minds representation of energy moves and its own body map. But most of the rest of the time, you just let it go on itself on its own. If you're a person that has a lot of strong energy moves is a very common kind of thing that happens at some point.

There will be a feeling of energy moving up your spine, like handling up to your head. And then, those old-fashioned juice coolers, where they got a big plastic tank and it shoots that you've stepped into kind of talking about them. It's like an energy goes up to the top of your head and then you have this, oh, so delightful feeling and it just goes over your entire body.

Can you. That's the bliss of physical pliancy is what that is called. And it's a company with very powerful sense of joy and happiness to,

but you don't need to chase those things. It'll either happen for you or if they don't, something better will happen for you. P T petite, is it as a poly word? She is. It's a poly word. Yes. There's a Sanskrit antiplatelet, Saska equivalent. I'm not sure exactly how it's pronounced, but a spell was an R T R with a daughter over at T I

D I think this house. Yeah, big T but the roll of your tongue a little bit

on share. Let me see if I know it says that.

I can't think of it off hand. If I do in the in the classic description of this, there are these stages of physical clients. Sorry, mental pliancy. That's where you develop the concentration that allows these things to happen. Concentration becomes effortless and you begin to experience the joy and the preliminary physical sensations.

And that leads to the stage called physical pliancy because your body becomes really stable. And comfortable, and there's no pain. You can sit in physical pliancy rises. You can sit for many hours without any discomfort. Then the next thing that arises is the bliss of physical pliancy, which.

Fountain the experience would be an example of a, it takes other forms. My favorite is that the physical pliancy the perception of your body changes. And I have often had the experience. We were sitting in meditation when the, when this list of physical pliancy arises, that I feel like I'm standing out.

I feel like I'm standing in that posture there. I don't know if it's, because I've always had these food images around me and I really liked them a lot. I've run into this, but I feel I no longer feel like I'm sitting down. I feel like I'm standing up and. Bodies or seems, I, all, I could see my body.

It would be so beautiful and rolling of light and wonderful and everything. So that's the list of physical, pliancy very pleasant sensations in the body. And then the bliss of metal applying and see, which is the full development of the, how the joy and happiness. It's a very excited kind of joyfulness, as I said.

And it's interesting because it doesn't, there's not much your mind wants to account for it, and there's not a lot to account for it, except the, oh, this is fine. Doing such a great meditation, I've succeeded it's maybe a success story. Aha. I've achieved it.

And at the top of the mountain, I'm there now that kind of a agile, so there's those four stages. And then what follows is the subsiding of of the bliss of physical pliancy. So this all kind of the, all the physical stuff fades into the back. And then there is a subsiding of the intensity of the joy of about the intensity of mental pliancy plus of mental appliance.

So it doesn't disappear entirely, but it subsides, and this is where the tranquility and the equanimity arise and become very strong. What's so important about. Is it, this is the stage where the mind is perfectly suited to have that experience, that definitive transforming experience that we talked about, stream entry, the Margaret Paul or dishonor Margaret and what is important, it's not enough just to come to the state.

A lot of equanimity, you also have to have deep insight. And that's where, what we were talking about earlier, you have to, you have to have understood that yourself is empty. You have to have understood that the objects that you see and claim to are projections of. Then having understood that you have to have tested that out over and over again, and your experience you've had to see the things are empty.

When you're walking down the street, you've had to save the things are empty. When you were having an argument with somebody, you had to see that things were empty. When you were falling asleep at night, you had to see that things were empty. When you were eating watch, you have to have this experience of reinforcing it.

Oh, This idea that I learned actually applies in this situation as well. And it's called this. That's how the stage of overcoming doubt is the stage of developing the. Which is where you intellectually understand that, ah, now I know what they're talking about or at least I think I do. And then there's a stage where you keep testing it.

If that's really true, then what about this? And so on and so forth. Stage of reflection. The stage of testing, and this is called and this constitutes the stage of overcoming doubt. You overcoming, do you overcome doubt through questioning through probing, through thinking about that's, you're trying it out wow.

If this is really happy right now, what does that mean? What about these people are, I'm saying this place than I am, and you test it out and say, yeah, My mind is projecting this. It's not necessarily where I see it at all that prepares your mind. And then in the course of your meditation, you will have.

You don't have a whole variety of experience that are basically really powerful affirmations of that. You'll have some form of wow, this is impermanence. Or, you're in meditation. Your mind keeps grasping and clinging to one thing or another, and suddenly it's wow, this is.

Those noble proves mean they're craving and grasping her causes of suffering. Even the most subtle dissatisfaction I'm having during a, not too bad meditation is due to craving and grasping. And then it comes real and that makes it even easier to go out there. So you prepare the mind in this way.

You prepare the mind intellectually intuitively your worldview begins to reflect this understanding. Then when you develop a deep stage of equanimity, then you're ready. And then your mind can penetrate beyond it's ongoing fabrication of the illusion that you live. So PT is an extremely important aspect of what happens and to forgetting they're

very important part of the process, but as soon as it arises, even its most subtle forms, which you might not recognize this PT, when you sit down to meditate and boy, it feels really comfortable to sit here today. Huh? I never noticed before how good it feels just to sit and that sort of pleasant feeling in your mind, those are subtle, very subtle aspects.

You wouldn't really call them PT technically, but they are of the same nature and. By allowing yourself to recognize those and nurture those, then that will improve. That will improve the process of focus and awareness leading to unification of mine. So very important to always cultivate that notice out and put it become a part of your awareness and it will accelerate your process.

Whenever you find yourself feeling restless and annoyed and disappointed. How pounds I keep doing this and nothing gets any better. Ah, that's the kind of thought that keeps the pleasure from arising that will make the difference in my concentration. Now that the satisfaction in firstly, I found dairy very interesting.

There's a positive psychologist by the name of Haley chick sent me his finding name, but who has for many years studied happiness. And he has studied and written about a phenomenon that he calls flow and he's interviewed all kinds of people. And he's had people go around with this little device that they wear that every so often beeps and they have to record what they're doing and what.

State of happiness is on scale and so forth. And basically he has discovered PT. He has discovered that the most intense state of happiness occurs whenever an individual is completely focused on something. And the more completely focused and absorbed they are. And in the and the answer is things hanging on the book he wrote, which is entitled.

So there are a lot of quotes from people that experiences very strongly and you read those and then you go and you read the descriptions and the meditation literature word for word same. They're exactly the same. So he's found that, surgeons, for example, there are some surgeons that, the height of their life as surgery, because they're totally focused.

They forget everything else. And they're filled with this blissful serenity, and they just do their work and they're, on a task, but he's even found assembly line workers. They experienced the same thing rare, but there is an accountant is broke out on the assembly line worker. I get totally absorbed in what I'm doing and nothing else matters.

And I become so happy and blissful and and I could work all day. I guess

so the quality of absorption, right? Everything else is out of the way. That's a quality of absorption in that activity and everything else is that's it? Everything else is Anson that's right? Yeah. And PTE is of course a Gianna factor is present. And the first two is, and then the pleasure that we talked about, the happiness that's present in the first three of the gentleness and the genres are absorptions that, they're different from the surgeon's absorptions or the, a, these other absorptions that we talked about.

And that they're the result of training. And they're not, they're independent of what you become absorbed vented. So you can be your time absorbed into some, something that some simple experiences serves as an object. But, and when I talked to you about entering in the light, John is you'd be entering into the first absorption.

And that will that experience of sitting there and absorption, which is deep concentration was strong. Pity will. Subsequently your mind now knows how to develop that degree of concentration. And so it's easier to concentrate subject policy as a result of.


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