Jhana Question...

FullCircle

I have been interested in concentration meditation recently, and learning/practicing re the jhanas. I've previously only praciticed vipassana.
I started discussing the jhanas vs the supramundane jhanas with some dharma friends. Someone said they knew someone who'd had a sudden awakening at their first retreat (Stream entry) (and had only meditated a few months beforehand). So if this person had no experience with jhanas, we were pondering well do they just jump in at Supramundane?
I was told the jhanas arent a necessity to awakening but I feel like concentration is probably a good thing to practice...
Thanks for any thoughts or info on this:)!

taiyaki

Insight is what liberates.

Everything else helps with insight.

But some beings have practiced in their previous lives, thus they have certain gifts in that respect. So its perfectly possible for insight to fly forward.

Just some thoughts.

fivebells

@FullCircle: Could you be more specific about your question? I didn't fully understand.

Songhill

FullCircle:

Before you go any further, please read this.

"Then, Aggivessana, I thought: I remember that once when my father, the Sakka, was working (in the fields), I was sitting in the cool shadow of a Jambu tree. Separated from objects which awaken desire, separated from harmful qualities I reached a (state of) joy and happiness (pîti-sukha) accompanied by contemplation and reflection which is the first jhâna/dhyâna (meditation) and remained in it for some time. Could this be, perhaps, the way (magga) to enlightenment (bodha)? After this memory, Aggivessana, I had this knowledge: this is the way to enlightenment. [Then], Aggivessana, I thought: why should I be afraid of this happiness that has nothing to do with objects which awaken desire and nothing to do with harmful qualities. [Then], Aggivessana, I thought: I am not afraid of this happiness that has nothing to do with objects which awaken desire and nothing to do with harmful qualities" (Mahasaccaka Sutta, MN 36).

FullCircle

OK sorry, I just was reading re jhanas again, so Stream Entry IS considered the first supramundane jhana?! So our question didnt even make sense! But I dont see how if someone just had a sudden experience, how that relates to any sense of concentration.. I'll just stick with trying to attain first jhana:)

Cloud

Jhana is just the mind letting go, and there are four progressions of this letting go. There are also, at least in Theravada, four progressions of enlightenment... and enlightenment is also "letting go". Hmm, correlation? Maybe one is a temporary form of the other. Maybe the mind of a stream-winner is the same as first jhana. I do know that the "enlightened mind" of a Buddha is said to be the same as fourth jhana. Makes sense to me. Who knows?

fivebells

Where did you read that stream entry is the first supramundane jhana? That's not my understanding (but there may be room for alternative interpretations.)

Cloud

I didn't, I said maybe. What I read is that the enlightened mind is the same as the fourth jhana. Where I read that... I just don't know. This makes it suggestive (to me) that perhaps the temporary states of mind that we call jhana somehow correlate to the progressive letting go that is enlightenment. It's an up-in-the-air question or suggestion.

Sabre

There is no such thing as supramundane and mundane jhana. Jhana is just jhana.

And if one says they have an experience of stream entry, doesn't make it so.

With metta,
Sabre

Cloud

@Sabre, If someone said that I'd say they're full of it, because stream entry isn't an experience, it's a paradigm shift.

Sabre

@Cloud,

well there are many interpretations of it. Some say the first moment you encounter Buddhism you are into the stream. Some say even among monastics it is rare to encounder someone who entered the stream. Goes to show the range of interpretations. But it can convince people they are somewhere they are not and that's dangerous.

But that aside, with jhana it is the same. Some say jhana just means meditation, some say the jhanas aren't even Buddhist, and some say jhana is rare even among monastics.

I'd go with the latter, seeing how many interpretations there are of jhana. So when talking about such things, always useful to keep this in mind.

Sabre

Cloud

Well I can't speak to enlightenment, but anyone who's done both normal meditation and jhana know they're very different. And it's not difficult, you just have to stop struggling and let go (though I can see how letting go might be the problem). Whatever different interpretations there are, these are different types of experience altogether. If someone thinks their normal meditation is jhana, then there's something else they haven't experienced yet! As to the rest of the stuff, who knows? Guess there's only one way to find out, but if you think you've "attained" something you should check with a teacher. People need to have someone to slap them in the face.

music

I am a bit lost. What's a stream entry.

music

Cloud said:

Well I can't speak to enlightenment, but anyone who's done both normal meditation and jhana know they're very different. And it's not difficult, you just have to stop struggling and let go (though I can see how letting go might be the problem). Whatever different interpretations there are, these are different types of experience altogether. If someone thinks their normal meditation is jhana, then there's something else they haven't experienced yet! As to the rest of the stuff, who knows? Guess there's only one way to find out, but if you think you've "attained" something you should check with a teacher. People need to have someone to slap them in the face.

How do we get to this jhana, whatever it is? Is it possible without meditation?

Cloud

@music, The first stage of enlightenment, also known as Sotapanna, at least in the Theravada traditions.

"The Sotāpanna is said to attain an intuitive grasp of dhamma (right view) and has complete confidence in the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha). The Sotapanna is said to have "opened the eye of the Dharma" (dhammacakkhu), because they have realized that whatever arises will cease (impermanence). Their conviction in the true dhamma would be unshakable.

They have had their first glimpse of the unconditioned element (Nibbana), which they see as the third of the Four Noble Truths, in the moment of the fruition of their path (magga-phala). Whereas the stream entrant has seen Nirvana though, and thus has verified confidence in it, the Arahant (who is at the fourth and final stage of Spiritual Nobility / sainthood) can drink of its waters, so-to-speak, to use a simile from the Kosambi Sutta (SN 12.68) - of a 'well' encountered along a desert road.[5]"

(Wikipedia)

Cloud

@music, I'm not a meditation teacher. There are resources you could find online... a quick search turned this up, though I don't have time to read it this second: http://www.dharma.org/ij/archives/2002b/jhana.htm

Sabre

Cloud said:

Well I can't speak to enlightenment, but anyone who's done both normal meditation and jhana know they're very different. And it's not difficult, you just have to stop struggling and let go (though I can see how letting go might be the problem). Whatever different interpretations there are, these are different types of experience altogether. If someone thinks their normal meditation is jhana, then there's something else they haven't experienced yet! As to the rest of the stuff, who knows? Guess there's only one way to find out, but if you think you've "attained" something you should check with a teacher. People need to have someone to slap them in the face.

Just saying that ones interpretation of things doesn't always have to be right. It often depends on what ones teacher says, on confusion or on what one likes things to be. Perhaps that could help FullCircle gain another perspective.

Whatever is the right and wrong interpretation here doesn't even matter.

FullCircle

Good stuff, thanks everyone-and thanks for that link Cloud!
@music, another good jhana article is http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratana/wheel351.html#ch5
- Beyond Mindfulness is a book on the jhanas and I'm also probably going to read Ajahn Brahms book on jhanas as well. Though like everything in Buddhism, I think only practice and experience will help me truly understand what I'm reading!

Songhill

FullCircle:

OK sorry, I just was reading re jhanas again, so Stream Entry IS considered the first supramundane jhana?! So our question didnt even make sense! But I dont see how if someone just had a sudden experience, how that relates to any sense of concentration.. I'll just stick with trying to attain first jhana

Jhâna/dhyâna is a general term for meditation, yet, it really doesn't mean meditation—not as we in the west are often wont to believe. More precisely, jhâna means 'religious experience' or we could even say it means 'mystical experience' which originally was divided into 4 states, the last one is when one "becomes aware of pure lucidity of mind & equanimity of heart" (PTS Pali-English Dic., 286).

There is no doubt sotapatti or current entry is an important spiritual event by which one becomes an ariyasavaka. Lacking sotapatti one cannot attain Buddhahood (i.e., become an arahant). Absent of a direct passage, we have to assume that the sotapanna entered a jhana sufficient to have achieved sotapatti.

Incidentally, there seems to be a growing divide in western Buddhism between those who don't wish to acknowledge that jhana is about the supramundane and those who do. The former are generally Soto Zennists who believe that meditation is just sitting; that if you just sit you are automatically a Buddha.

fivebells

Cloud said:

I didn't, I said maybe.

@Cloud: I was responding to @FullCircle. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

@Sabre: Thanks for the pointer to the Leigh Branson essay. That was very interesting.

@FullCircle: How is your concentration practice going?

FullCircle

@fivebells, hi- I'd say my concentration practice is going fine.. had a couple very still sits earlier this year, and maybe my problem lately is I'm trying to recreate those;) otw, all's good thanks!

pegembara

To have any chance of liberating insights, the mind has to be freed from the 5 hindrances:- sensual desire, anger/aversion, drowsiness, restlessness and doubt. The mind that is settled, still and bright/alert is required.

This is silent illumination, right concentration/samadhi or jhana states.

IMO

Sabre

fivebells said:

Cloud said:

I didn't, I said maybe.

@Sabre: Thanks for the pointer to the Leigh Branson essay. That was very interesting.

You're welcome.

Whatever view you have or may not have, keep in mind when reading that essay, that Brasington himself has the view of the 'easier' jhanas so he puts off the 'harder' ones as if they are not in the suttas, but of course those who teach those don't agree with that.