Jhanas
Arahant
Fourth Jhana
While meditator is practicing meditation, it is better to know how far each one has success in practices. You may use the word βjhanaβ as a searching through the general web search engine
English for Thai people is a foreign language. It is not second language. Root of Thai language came partly from Pali and Sanskrit so as my name. So I prefer Pali than English sometime.
Meditation practice in the Buddhaβs lifetime can be divided into 3 periods. Firstly, the meditation practices that Buddha learned from his teachers before he turned to the Middle Way. Samatha is these kinds of meditation practices. Samatha has another name called Jhana. Some Westerners translated Samatha as concentration but I disagree because Samatha has 8 states and concentration is only a tiny part of all process. Samatha started from one-pointed concentration and end with a formless form of emptiness. The Buddha found that the person who passes the Formless Samatha would reborn in Formless Realm. Formless Realm has no sufferings but after a very long period of time (millions of years and many times of Earth life) the people there will reborn again. So it is not the goal of the Buddhaβs practice.
Secondly, the meditation practices that the Buddha himself and his disciples practiced for the enlightenment. The Buddha still practiced Samatha to sharpen and energize his mind. He practiced Samatha forwardly from 1 to 8 state and backwardly from 8 to 1 state as a mind exercise. Furthermore, the Buddha discovered Vipassana as a unique meditation practice of Buddhism. Vipassana was the practice that helped making his Dhamma, ended his suffering and ended his rebirth cycle. Vipassana is the process to apply right understanding to find the truths then gain wisdom as an outcome. There are many applications such as Samatha then Vipassana, Vipassana then Samatha, Samatha in Vipassana, and Vipassana in Samatha. All of these applications are not the same as to hide the sensory and perception as Samatha. Vipassana uses strong power of sensory and perception to empty the cause of suffering and rebirth.
Lastly, the meditation practices that the Buddha and other enlightened persons practiced after the enlightenment. After their liberation through voidness (Sunnata-vimokkha), they had no more truths to be liberated so they concentrated on the void (Sunnata-samadhi) as a kind of practices. This may be similar, as saying that in meditation, there is only reality and no experience of (more) truths. Emptiness is absolutely emptiness not because of there is nothing but there are no humanβs words in any dictionary to represent the emptiness and condition of this level. Only the person who attains this level will understand.
There is a kind of emptiness but it is from Moha Samadhi (Fake and not Right Meditation). This kind of practice should be avoided because it starts from no concentration or concentration on nothing then ends at no awareness. It likes day dreaming with blank mind that gains nothing. It may be called the process of endarkenment.
I think it is not easy to know when and where is the end of meditation practice. There were also other meditation practices that the Buddha discovered during his 45 years after his enlightenment. Even the first Jhana is emptiness of some kind. There are many kinds and forms of emptiness that related to the steps of the Buddhaβs discovery.
Your practice sounds very good and should be the right start, I think. I will share some of my Vipassana experience too.
Vipassana starts without blank screen. It starts by watching to learn the body-mind process so it is better to practice Vipassana in everyday life to have something arisen in the mind. When I finish practicing Samatha, I will continue with Vipassana immediately.
After Samatha, whatever I feel, think, hear, or sense, I will find that its process begins with something arising-staying for awhile-then disappearing. This is anicca then anatta then this cycle will repeat itself again and again. I learn the nature of Anatta.
Next step may be continuing with Anatta until I see and feel that the real nature is not real as I experienced. Everything (at least at this level I will believe that it is everything not almost all things) is Anatta. Then I recall a past experience and think how anatta cause me sufferings. Craving and attachment can not win anatta. So I should extinguish the cause of sufferings, which is at this level, are craving and attachment. This step relates with the 4 noble truths.
Instead of continuing with the 4 noble truths as above, next step may be learning how body-mind process works with the five aggregates. I receive the picture through the eyes (rupa) and translate with my past experience and memory (sanna) then may own thought (sankhara) may bias and ignite the temper (vedana) that I know by my consciousness (vinnana). So after learning how the body-mind process works then I will try to disconnect the process.