Is Seeking Bliss a Hindrance?

Amida

I've heard some suggest that to seek bliss in meditation is to be wrongly attached to bliss and a hindrance to true practice. I'm wondering if seeking the joy of bliss is really a hindrance and if it's to be avoided. Would people even meditate if it didn't promise some reward of bliss and freedom from suffering?

Ajhan Brahm said, in relation to being attached to jhana,

When the Bodhisatta had the insight that jhāna was the way to enlightenment, he then thought, “Why am I afraid of that pleasure which has nothing to do with the five senses nor with unwholesome things? I will not be afraid of that pleasure [of jhāna]!” (MN 36,32). Even today, some meditators mistakenly believe that something as intensely pleasurable as jhāna cannot be conducive to the end of all suffering, and they remain afraid of jhāna. However, in the suttas the Buddha repeatedly stated that the pleasure of the jhāna “is to be followed, is to be developed, and is to be encouraged. It is not to be feared” (MN 66,21).

In spite of this clear advice from the Buddha himself, some students of meditation are misled by those who discourage jhāna on the grounds that one can become so attached to jhāna that one never becomes enlightened. It should be pointed out that the Buddha’s word for attachment, upādāna, refers only to attachment to the comfort and pleasure of the five-sense world or to attachment to various forms of wrong view (such as a view of a self). It never means attachment to wholesome things like jhāna.

Simply put, jhāna states are stages of letting go. One cannot be attached to letting go, just as one cannot be imprisoned by freedom. One can indulge in jhāna, in the bliss of letting go, and this is what some people are misled into fearing. But in the Pāsādika Sutta (DN 29,25), the Buddha said that one who indulges in the pleasure of jhāna may expect only one of four consequences: stream winning, once-returning, nonreturning, or full enlightenment! In other words, indulging in jhāna leads only to the four stages of enlightenment. Thus, in the words of the Buddha, “One should not fear jhāna.”

Talisman

Ending the desire for the bliss and rapture of the material and immaterial meditative absorptions is a requisite for arahantship. This is amajor difference between what the Buddha taught and what others in his time taught. They were obsessed with the meditative absorptions and believed them to be the culmination of the path, but the Buddha recognized that they are also impermanent, dukkha, and not-self and are to be eventually abandoned like everything else. Don't give them up until they have served their purpose though. That's like tossing out the raft while you're still on the river.

Sile

There's nothing wrong with appreciating bliss, any more than it's wrong to appreciate a comfortable meditation cushion. But bliss and comfort would be an obstacle if you saw them as the "final goal." It's only natural to appreciate a hot meal, comfy cushion, bliss; just don't get hung up on them.

Lady_Alison

Thank you for the thread...darn, I do love roller coaster chakra Wednesdays...with a little lime and umbrella.

ThailandTom

According to Ajahn Chah it is. If you strive for enlightentment, desire it, then you will never reach such a state of mind. He was in an interview with a BBC reporter who clearly did not understand Ajahn Chahs answer with the interatator as it did not make sense to him. I shall try and find the link.. Here it is, it is old but it is in the video around 4 minutes in.

zen_world

Bliss is actually very important.
Many Buddhists I heard saying that we should not attach to bliss...that is true. But many misunderstood this and come to a conclusion that bliss is not important.
It is important. Without bliss you cannot get enlightened. Bliss has to be used wisely. It will help you surrounder. With our solid mind state we are resisting to surrounder ourselves, body and mind have too many entanglements and it is tight. Bliss will help you relax and let it be....When it reaches to a certain threshold, your body cannot resist to it anymore and you let go...Then you will become one with the emptiness...Without bliss, you cannot go there...

Talisman

Bliss is one of the signifying factors of the first 2 meditative absorptions. It meets its cessation in the arising of the third jhana. Very important indeed.

WallyB

Ajahn Brahm may be quoted but how is this relevent to the question? where does Ajahn Brahm say "seeking" bliss will not be a hindrance? are not Ajahn Chah & Ajahn Brahm encouraging "letting go" rather than "seeking"

Dazzle

From Jhana sutta AN 4.123 :

"There is the case where an individual, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He savors that, longs for that, finds satisfaction through that. Staying there — fixed on that, dwelling there often, not falling away from that — then when he dies he reappears in conjunction with the devas of Brahma's retinue. The devas of Brahma's retinue, monks, have a life-span of an eon. A run-of-the-mill person having stayed there, having used up all the life-span of those devas, goes to hell, to the animal womb, to the state of the hungry shades. But a disciple of the Blessed One, having stayed there, having used up all the life-span of those devas, is unbound right in that state of being. This, monks, is the difference, this the distinction, this the distinguishing factor, between an educated disciple of the noble ones and an uneducated run-of-the-mill person, when there is a destination, a reappearing."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.123.than.html

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RichardH

I've been told in so many different ways...... "It's not about having an experience, but whatever experience is present"

Just seeing wanting this moment to be other than it is, and letting that go, so that there is only "how it is" alone, has no comparison. Even if "how it is" is the opposite of blissful.

It takes the wind out of the bliss project.

Dakini

My observation from a distance is that seeking out the bliss experience for its own sake turns people into bliss junkies. People who are into it just for that experience as often as not fail to develop virtue as the Buddha taught it. Ego is an ever-present pitfall.

Amida

Thank you for all your comments.

From what was said above, I see you can welcome and befriend bliss, letting bliss lead you into even higher places, but if one doesn't want to part with this friend it can cause them to stop short, becoming somewhat of a hindrance.

Like all things, we should remain as the mirror mind, as Zhuangzi put it, that accepts freely what arises, but doesn't hold onto them when they pass.

Bhagavan

Apparently, buddha has mentioned his pleasureable experiences of indulging in the four consequences and beyond these jhana. There is nothing to fear upon as buddhism is pleasureable.

lamaramadingdong

Bliss is realizing you already have it...no matter what.

SpinyNorman2

In spite of this clear advice from the Buddha himself, some students of meditation are misled by those who discourage jhāna on the grounds that one can become so attached to jhāna that one never becomes enlightened.

Yes, I've come across this and I find it quite puzzling. IMO Jhana is important and to be encouraged, not frowned upon.

Spiny

SpinyNorman2

According to Ajahn Chah it is. If you strive for enlightentment, desire it, then you will never reach such a state of mind.

This approach doesn't work for me because without some aspiration for enlightenment I wouldn't bother to practice.

Spiny

SpinyNorman2

My observation from a distance is that seeking out the bliss experience for its own sake turns people into bliss junkies. People who are into it just for that experience as often as not fail to develop virtue as the Buddha taught it. Ego is an ever-present pitfall.

Perhaps, but taking the view that jhana is somehow bad means missing out on an important experience. And in the suttas the Buddha is described as progressing through the jhanas just prior to his enlightenment, strongly suggesting that the jhanas are stepping stones to the enlightened state and not merely a nice experience.

Spiny

SpinyNorman2

Just seeing wanting this moment to be other than it is, and letting that go, so that there is only "how it is" alone, has no comparison. Even if "how it is" is the opposite of blissful.

It takes the wind out of the bliss project.

It depends what kind of meditation you're talking about. Jhanas are states of absorption which can arise when doing concentration practices like mindfulness of breathing.

Spiny

Sile

Bliss is actually very important.
Many Buddhists I heard saying that we should not attach to bliss...that is true. But many misunderstood this and come to a conclusion that bliss is not important.
It is important. Without bliss you cannot get enlightened. Bliss has to be used wisely. It will help you surrounder. With our solid mind state we are resisting to surrounder ourselves, body and mind have too many entanglements and it is tight. Bliss will help you relax and let it be....When it reaches to a certain threshold, your body cannot resist to it anymore and you let go...Then you will become one with the emptiness...Without bliss, you cannot go there...

I really dig this observation, zen_world.

SpinyNorman2

I wonder how many of the people that disparage the jhanas based on what some teacher said have actually experienced them?

RichardH

Just seeing wanting this moment to be other than it is, and letting that go, so that there is only "how it is" alone, has no comparison. Even if "how it is" is the opposite of blissful.

It takes the wind out of the bliss project.

It depends what kind of meditation you're talking about. Jhanas are states of absorption which can arise when doing concentration practices like mindfulness of breathing.

Spiny

Indeed. It also depends on the tradition, not just in the different Buddhist streams, but within streams. Within Theravada (as I'm sure you know) some emphasize Jhana some do not. I know a monk, abbot of monastery, who is without a doubt very wise, and who has said he never focused on attaining or dwelling in Jhanas. I've also heard of a young monk who could enter Jhana at the the drop of a hat, but was not seen to be developing wisdom by his abbot, and was instructed to refrain from practising absorptions, and instead to just sow, etc.

In Zen there are absorptions, come-by in the course of practice..... but a state is a state is a state is a state.... subtle or gross. That is the view I have been taught in by zen Buddhism.

This is my understanding and experience. It may be different than your understanding. I accept totally that for those who see attaining Jhana as essential it is essential, and for those who it isn't it isn't. So I should not presume to speak for what is essential for others.

genkaku

After I asked him about belief and hope, my Zen teacher once told me, "For the first four or five years (of practice) belief and hope are necessary. After that, they are not so necessary."

compassionate_warrior

I suppose whether seeking Bliss were a hindrance would depend on one's motives for seeking it. And how one reacted once one experienced it.