I often see people claiming jhana - it is a bit of an epidemic these days.
Here is an example today from dhammwheel.
I just wanted to share this post I made on my social media, it was more of an exhortation to myself since I’ve been living a not-so jhāna friendly lifestyle as of late. However, I have experienced relief-born joy and the suppression of hindrances. May it be an encouragement to even one person:
The attainment of jhāna is the attainment of a temporary suppression of craving in the present. This provides a sense of relief, which can be so strong as to be felt in the body.
It does not necessitate that you see lights or colors, hear sounds, etc. It’s not a trance state, nor do you become any less lucid. If anything, you gain heightened clarity of mind
You’re also not shut off from sense experience entirely (unlike what commentaries may say)
You DO come to disregard sense experience as being valuable, and this attainment reinforces said change in values. To FEEL what it is like to be free of desire and hindrances, even momentarily, rewires the heart in favor of further freedom
This is an attainment that IS accessible to people who practice a sufficient measure of restraining and a bit of physical seclusion.
You do NOT need any ‘trick’ or ‘method’ that modern teachers are peddling. You just have to watch and guard the mind from the effects of craving.
It’s unfortunate that this practice has been overcomplicated over centuries, leading to the belief that it is something completely out of reach or superhuman.
It’s something the Buddha recommended even to laypeople, who were also providing for the monastic sangha and making merits.
The Buddha’s encouragement to practice diligently applies even to lay people, and should in no way be seen as over our heads or too intimidating to effect.
My point is to demystify the attainment of jhāna, which tho quite pleasant and beneficial, is very mundane.
Actually jhana is uttarimanussadhammassa,a super-human state.
Any monk claiming it falsely is immediately parajika. https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-bu-vb-p … ript=latin
If a bhikkhu has managed to attain this very difficult to attain state and tells laypeople it is still an offense (although not parajika).
You’re also not shut off from sense experience entirely (unlike what commentaries may say)
This is also said in the Tipitaka: Katthavatthu PTS translation by Aung and Davids pages 331-332.
XV1118 Of Hearing in Jhana
The Pubbaseilyans thought that there could still be hearing in jhana and this was refuted by the Theravada.
The experiences I’ve had seem to map well to the samadhanga sutta, specifically jhānas 1 and 2.
Even a bhikkhu who has attained genuine first jhana but hasn’t mastered it - soo hard to do - but then aims for second jhana will not be able to attain it. In fact he will also lose the first jhana. These are no mean states. https://suttacentral.net/an9.35/en/than … ight=false
In the same way, there are cases where a monk—foolish, inexperienced, unfamiliar with his pasture, unskilled in being quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, and entering & remaining in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation—doesn’t stick with that theme, doesn’t develop it, pursue it, or establish himself firmly in it. The thought occurs to him, ‘What if I, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, were to enter & remain in the second jhana: rapture & pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation—internal assurance.’ He is not able… to enter & remain in the second jhana… The thought occurs to him, ‘What if I… were to enter & remain in the first jhana… He is not able… to enter & remain in the first jhana. This is called a monk who has slipped & fallen from both sides, like the mountain cow, foolish, inexperienced, unfamiliar with her pasture, unskilled in roaming on rugged mountains.
It is also worth adding a point about the nature of concentration, samadhi.
I competed a few times in target pistol events. To succeed the degree of calm is much more than usual - the heartbeat slows, the body is so still, the breath slows. However, it is of course entirely akusala (miccha samadhi, wrong concentration)- very obviously.
Wrong concentration may also be present, but not obvious, when we are doing something conventionally spiritual.
From the first book of the Abhidhanmma. DHAMMASANGANI 375; 5. Katamā tasmiṃ samaye cittassekaggatā hoti? Yā tasmiṃ samaye cittassa ṭhiti saṇṭhiti avaṭṭhiti avisāhāro avikkhepo avisāhaṭamānasatā samatho samādhindriyaṃ samādhibalaṃ micchāsamādhi – ayaṃ tasmiṃ samaye cittassekaggatā hoti.
What is the one-pointedness of mind at that time? Whatever at that time is the mind’s steadiness, settling, fixity, non-wandering, non-scattering, undistractedness, serenity, the faculty of concentration, the power of concentration, wrong concentration—this is the one-pointedness of mind at that time
These same factors of serenity etc are also present in right concentration, only the factor of wisdom can distinguish them.
If you ask, he is against the commentaries. He is likely a Nyanaviran.
It is all the same classical pattern. “Don’t listen to the Commentaries or Abhidhamma, listen to me instead.” They also feel that Theravada has destroyed the Buddha’s teachings and it was rewritten to make things complicated. In a previous post where one asked why there is a movement against the commentaries, it is very simple. They want to attain so badly, they will rewrite the requirements.
The funny thing is that everyone has vitakka vicara piti sukha ekaggata all the time, but it is not jhana.
“They who lay the foundations of a State and furnish it with laws must, as is shown by all who have treated of civil government, and by examples of which history is full, assume that ‘all men are bad, and will always, when they have free field, give loose to their evil inclinations; and that if these for a while remain hidden, it is owing to some secret cause, which, from our having no contrary experience, we do not recognize at once, but which is afterwards revealed by Time, of whom we speak as the father of all truth.”
Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discourses (p. 11). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.
This is why it took Buddhist rulers in the past to suppress such views among teachers. The problem is that, nowadays, the Buddhist countries don’t have such rulers, and are too interconnected with each other and with non-Buddhist countries, which is why we live in a kind of Buddhist chaos world which is quickly deteriorating.
It goes back to Western civilization (of course, these kinds of things can happen without the help of Western civilization, but with it, they are given rocket fuel).
Of course, given the chance, the “intellectuals” will always take up these views and make it their life’s mission to propagate them, as we see so many do. And the rest of us (which include all the regular people of average intelligence as well as the rare ones of very high intelligence - far higher than that of the intellectuals) will always be subject to their campaigns. That is why the Commentators had to be so exactingly thorough and specific, and why the Theravāda only accepted their official Commentaries, and so on.
Overestimation is a big thing and is to be expected in the very self-confident culture of the West. I dont remember who it was but i remember a prominent secular meditation teacher claiming that “enlightenment” is reaching the state of being mindful even without actively meditating.
Pretty much anyone with a regular meditation practice or has been on a sufficiently intensive meditation retreat can achieve this but it may be hard to explain to a newbie meditator, but he says its real because he experienced it. But for some strange reason it never occurred to him that just because he never experienced it that its not possible to achieve abhinna powers or attain actual enlightenment thru meditation.
Nowadays when people have a profound meditation experience they never experienced before - they suddenly think they have attained jhana/enlightenment.
Most people talk nonsense and other fools believe it, which is I guess to be expected, however what I really don’t understand is when people “teach” or make claims about something they themselves haven’t attained.
