Agony and Ecstasy

50
(jhāna) in the spheres of pure form (rūpāvacara), where the mind
is calmer and freer, and less excited than in the initial state of absorption.
Sustained application of mind (vicāra) will, therefore, occur in
all classes of thought or mental states where initial application (vitakka)
is found, but not vice versa.
It is a mental factor (cetasikā), which although not occurring
in each and every thought, can be found frequently in combination
with healthy and unhealthy factors. It is only in the spheres of the
abstract and formless (arūpāvacara) that the movement of thought
is totally absent, as also in the further three stages of trance, when
thought in any form has given way to the ecstasies of joy, of peace
and evenmindedness (pīti, sukha, ekaggatā). This sustained application
of thought (vicāra), therefore, combines with resolve (adhimokkha)
as well as with perplexity (vicikicchā), although these
two can never combine in one thought. In itself, therefore, it appears
to be insignificant, but its supporting qualities are great, for
better or for worse. It has its place inrecipient or presentative cognition
(sampaṭicchana), which is the act of mental perception, i.e.
the acceptance of impression. It is an aid in the process of investigating
consciousness (santīraṇa), which is the reflex-idea through
which there is recognition of the sense-objects.
It is the trance-like quality of continued application of thought
which binds the subjective mind to its object so much that there is
full concentration at the work at hand. It is that absorbing quality
which makes a poet see and say things which a distracted mind will
never think of. It is the absorbing quality of the scientist, of the
inventor, of the philosopher, who emotionally and intuitionally feel
where thought is leading them, even before they are able to express
that feeling in words, in figures, in deeds. Thus they feel the need
to sometimes use symbols to represent their emotions, abstractions
to represent the concrete they cannot express. But abstractions as
well as emotions are still mind-made and hence subject to all the