The Buddhist Pathsettled and calm in meditation parallels in a real sense the stages
of sexual excitement and enjoyment. Indeed, it is in such terms
that some contemporary Buddhist monks describe their medita-
tion experience.^26 The kinds of joy and 'signs' are in fact indic-
ative of the variety of visual and physical phenomena that may
accompany meditationY Such phenomena seem to be something
of a universal in the experience and lives of contemplatives from
whatever religious tradition.
With the suppression of the five hindrances and the arising of
the counterpart sign, or, in Asanga's terms, wit!J. the attainment
of the ninth stage of the settling of the mind, consciousness
reaches the relative peace and quiet and clarity of 'access con-
centration'. This is distinguished from absorption or dhyiina
proper by virtue of the fact that, although fully present, the five
limbs of dhyiina are weak and unstable and liable to fail the med-
itator who will then fall from the state of concentration rather
like a child who takes his first tentative steps and then falls in a
heap. With practice the meditator achieves skill in absorption.
The most ancient description of this process is as follows:
Abandoning these five hindrances which are defilements of the mind
and weaken understanding, quite secluded from the objects of sense-
desire and unwholesome states, he attains the first jhlina, a state of joy
and happiness born of seclusion and accompanied by application of
thought and examining. He soaks, pervades, fills and suffuses this very
body with that joy and happiness born of seclusion such that there is no
part of his whole body that is not suffused by that joy and happiness
born of seclusion. It is as if a skilled bath attendant or his apprentice,
having sprinkled bath-powder onto a bronze tray, were to knead it together
evenly with drops of water such that the ball of bath-powder is covered
and filled with moisture, is suffused with moisture within and without,
and yet does not drip.^28
The stages of dhyana
The initial attainment of meditative absorption or dhyiina is
characterized by the presence and balancing of five mental qual-
ities, the limbs of dhyiina. But this initial attainment can be fur-
ther refined. The process of refinement seems once again best