How Does the Sublime State of Heavenly Beings Arise?

With shallow meditative concentration (samādhi), the body may exhibit some phenomena of swelling and expansion; this is a phenomenon that arises when the manas' grasping at the body diminishes, the heartbeat transcending the human realm—a reaction that slightly corresponds to the realm of the devas of the desire realm. As long as one abandons the states of the human realm and lightens one's attachments to the five desires of the human world, the states of the devas will inevitably appear.

All concentrations prior to the first dhyāna of the form realm belong to preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) that has not yet reached the first dhyāna, divided into multiple levels; when the mind differs, the coarse or subtle levels of concentration differ, but to a greater or lesser degree they all correspond to the states of the devas of the desire realm. The further one departs from the five desires of the human world, the deeper the concentration, the greater the changes in the body, and the more pleasant the feelings of body and mind. Therefore we should know that by leaving behind the desires of the human world, we will be more at ease, and all feelings will be beautiful. How unwise it is to crave and cling to the six sense-object states and the life of the five desires in the human world; how inferior and unbearable human life truly is.

Countless people crave and delight in the flowers and grasses, mountains, rivers, and the great earth, human affairs and material things of the human world, taking pride and arrogance in possessing power, status, wealth, sensual pleasures, and family relatives in the human world. In fact, compared with the sublime states of the devas, they are not even a small sorcerer's apprentice; there is nothing at all worth being proud or arrogant about. Only those with short-sighted vision who have never seen the wider world would behave this way.