FIRST STATES - RAPTURE AND EQUANIMITY

(1)"Detached from sensual objects, o monks, detached from unwholesome consciousness, attached with thought-conception (vitakka) and discursive thinking, born of detachment (vivekaja) and filled with rapture and joy (sukha) he enters the first absorption. 

(2)"After the subsiding of thought-conception and discursive thinking, and by gaining inner tranquility and oneness of mind, he enters into a state free from thought-conception and discursive thinking, the second absorption, which is born of concentration, and filled with rapture and joy (sukha). 

(3) "After the fading away of rapture he dwells in equanimity, mindful, clearly conscious; and he experiences in his person that feeling of which the Noble Ones say,  'Happy lives the man of equanimity and attentive mind'; thus he enters the third absorption. 

(4) "After having given up pleasure and pain, and through the disappearance of previous joy and grief, he enters into a state beyond pleasure and pain, into the fourth absorption, which is purified by equanimity and mindfulness." 

IN CONSTRUCTION