The Samatha Jhanas

Again, my apologies for the formatting. Go to the link at the bottom if interested.

Via Shaman Sun:

Steps leading to jhana/dhyana
There are 9 steps in concentration training leading to shamatha (pali samatha) as explained in Alan Wallace's "The Attention Revolution." What follows is a brief overivew of this map with 9 steps, 6 powers, and 4 types of engagements featured in Wallace's handbook, with additional notes on terminology from different sources (such as "Mahayanasutralankara" and "Shravakabhumi" by Maitreyanatha/Asanga,"Bhavanakrama" by Kamalashila etc.).

	Step	What is achieved	Power by which that is achieved	What problem persists	Attentional imbalances	Type of mental engagement	Quality of the experience	Involuntary thoughts
1	Directed attention	One is able to direct the attention to the chosen object	Learning the instructions (skt. shruti)	No attentional continuity on the object	Coarse excitation	Focused	Movement	Flow of involuntary thought like a cascading waterfall
2	Continuous att.	Attentional continuity to a chosen object up to a minute	Thinking about the practice (skt. asaya)	Most of the time attention is not on the object	Coarse excitation	Focused	Movement	Flow of involuntary thought like a cascading waterfall
3	Resurgent att.	Swift recovery of distracted attention, mostly on the object	Mindfulness (skt. smrti)	One still forgets the object entirely for brief periods	Coarse excitation	Interrupted	Movement	Flow of involuntary thought like a cascading waterfall
4	Close att.	One no longer completely forgets the chosen object	Mindfulness, which is now strong	Some degree of complacency concerning samadhi	Coarse laxity and medium excitation	Interrupted	Achievement	Involuntary thoughts like a river quickly flowing through a gorge
5	Tamed att.	One takes satisfaction in samadhi	Introspection (skt. samprajanya)	Some resistance to samadhi	Medium laxity and medium excitation	Interrupted	Achievement	Involuntary thoughts like a river quickly flowing through a gorge
6	Pacified att.	No resistance to training the attention	Introspection	Desire, depression, lethargy, and drowsiness	Medium laxity and subtle excitation	Interrupted	Achievement	Involuntary thoughts like a river slowly flowing through a valley
7	Fully pacified att.	Pacification of attachment, melancholy, and lethargy	Enthusiasm (skt. virya)	Subtle imbalances of attention, swiftly rectified	Subtle laxity and excitation	Interrupted	Familiarity	Involuntary thoughts like a river slowly flowing through a valley
8	Single-pointed att.	Samadhi is long, sustained without any excitation or laxity	Mindfulness, introspection, enthusiasm	It still takes effort to ward off excitation and laxity	Latent impulses for subtle excitation and laxity	Uninterrupted	Stillness	Conceptually discursive mind is calm like an ocean with no waves
9	Attentional balance	Flawless samadhi is long, sustained effortlessly	Familiarity (skt. paricaya)	Attentional imbalances may recur infuture	Causes of those imbalances are still latent	Effortless	Perfection	Conceptually discursive mind is still like a great mountain

* Coarse excitation: attention completely disengages from the medit. object. Medium exc: involuntary thoughts occupy the center of attention, while the medit. object is displaced to periphery. Subtle exc: Medit. object remains at center of attention, but involuntary thoughts emerge at periphery of attention.
* Coarse laxity: Attention mostly disengages from medit. object due to insufficient vividness. Medium lax: Object appears, but not with much vividness. Subtle lax: Object appears vividly, but attention is slightly slack.

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