Standing Where the Buddha Stood
January 18, 2005
In all the passages where the Buddha describes his Awakening, he talks about first going through the different levels of jhana. Once he had stabilized his mind in good, solid, strong states of concentration, he directed it to insight — which means that the insights he got were the way experience looks from the point of view of someone in good, strong concentration. That’s where all the terms, all the ideas and concepts come from. So if you want to understand the ideas and concepts, you have to put yourself in the same place.