user10831: I'm having trouble truly understanding nimattas. I use visualization for my jhana mediation. It's what focus my mind best and allowed me to almost enter jhana. But if i do visualize, will the nimatta still appear? How would i recognise it? And once it appear do i move off my object to it?
Also i read this passage explaining what a nimtta means in the modern day. I wish to know does this do a great job explaining it.

Now certainly it is true that if you become VERY concentrated you might see an image that looks like "a star or a cluster of gems" or "chariot wheel or the moon's disk," etc. And it is also true that you can with sufficient concentration absorb into that experience so deeply that you no longer hear sounds, or are aware of your body, or are even aware of the passage of time. This is not what is described in the suttas; however, this is indeed what the later commentaries mean when they use the word "nimitta."


user-1: Yes. Breath is also such object of meditation. There are many different objects of visualisation for Shamatha practise. For instance, I have seen many Tibetan Buddhists (here, Karma Kagyu Karmapa) advising to choose object similar to practise of tonglen instead of focusing on breath (in mindfulness of breath).
The important part is that you have to abandon and let go of it it to experience nimitta.
From Ajahn Brahm's - "Stepping towards Enlightement":

As your unbroken mindfulness watches the breath calming down, joy
  (step five) and happiness (step six) naturally arise like the golden
  light of dawn on an eastern horizon. 
(...)
The breath at these fifth and sixth steps appears
  so tranquil and beautiful—more attractive than a garden in springtime
  or a sunset in the summer—that you wonder if you will ever want to
  look at anything else. As the breath becomes ever more beautiful, as
  the joy and happiness grow in quiet strength, your breath may seem to
  completely disappear. This seventh step does not happen when you want
  it to but when there is enough calm.
(...)
Just as the Cheshire Cat [Alice in Wonderland] disappeared and left only its grin, so the
  meditator’s body and breath disappear, leaving only the beautiful.
  For Alice, it was the most curious thing she ever saw. For the meditator  it is also strange, to clearly experience a free-floating beauty with 
  nothing to embody it, not even a breath.
(...)
Two common obstacles occur after this
  seventh step: exhilaration and fear. In exhilaration, the mind becomes
  excited: “Wow, this is it!” If the mind thinks like this, then the
  jhana is unlikely to happen. This “wow!” response needs to be subdued
  in the eighth step of anapanasati in favor of absolute passivity. You
  can leave all the wows until after emerging from the jhana, where they
  properly belong. The more likely obstacle, though, is fear.

Only after overcoming the eight phase, nimitta arises.

10831: <p>I'm having trouble truly understanding nimattas. I use visualization for my jhana mediation. It's what focus my mind best and allowed me to almost enter jhana. But if i do visualize, will the nimatta still appear? How would i recognise it? And once it appear do i move off my object to it?</p>

<p>Also i read this passage explaining what a nimtta means in the modern day. I wish to know does this do a great job explaining it.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Now certainly it is true that if you become VERY concentrated you might see an image that looks like "a star or a cluster of gems" or "chariot wheel or the moon's disk," etc. And it is also true that you can with sufficient concentration absorb into that experience so deeply that you no longer hear sounds, or are aware of your body, or are even aware of the passage of time. This is not what is described in the suttas; however, this is indeed what the later commentaries mean when they use the word "nimitta."</p>
</blockquote>
 -1: <p>Yes. Breath is also such object of meditation. There are many different objects of visualisation for Shamatha practise. For instance, I have seen many Tibetan Buddhists (here, Karma Kagyu Karmapa) advising to choose object similar to practise of tonglen instead of focusing on breath (in mindfulness <strong>of</strong> breath).</p>

<p>The important part is that you have to abandon and let go of it it to experience <em>nimitta</em>.</p>

<p>From Ajahn Brahm's - "<em>Stepping towards Enlightement</em>":</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>As your unbroken mindfulness watches the breath calming down, joy
  (step five) and happiness (step six) naturally arise like the golden
  light of dawn on an eastern horizon. </p>
  
  <p>(...)</p>
  
  <p>The breath at these fifth and sixth steps appears
  so tranquil and beautiful—more attractive than a garden in springtime
  or a sunset in the summer—that you wonder if you will ever want to
  look at anything else. As the breath becomes ever more beautiful, as
  the joy and happiness grow in quiet strength, your breath may seem to
  completely disappear. This seventh step does not happen when you want
  it to but when there is enough calm.</p>
  
  <p>(...)</p>
  
  <p>Just as the Cheshire Cat [Alice in Wonderland] disappeared and left only its grin, so the
  meditator’s body and breath disappear, leaving only the beautiful.
  For Alice, it was the most curious thing she ever saw. For the meditator  it is also strange, to clearly experience a free-floating beauty with 
  nothing to embody it, not even a breath.</p>
  
  <p>(...)</p>
  
  <p>Two common obstacles occur after this
  seventh step: exhilaration and fear. In exhilaration, the mind becomes
  excited: “Wow, this is it!” If the mind thinks like this, then the
  jhana is unlikely to happen. This “wow!” response needs to be subdued
  in the eighth step of anapanasati in favor of absolute passivity. You
  can leave all the wows until after emerging from the jhana, where they
  properly belong. The more likely obstacle, though, is fear.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Only after overcoming the eight phase, <em>nimitta</em> arises.</p>
