Sense objects during Jhana?

[mikenz66]

Hi Bhante,

Regarding arguments over interpretations of jhāna, these posts and links by Bhante Dhammanando may be helpful:
https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?p=544668#p544668

@Dhammanando

Whether or not five-sense-door experience is present in the jhānas is a matter Buddhists have been debating for over two millennia. If Dhamma Wheel’s 33-page Great Jhāna Debate thread is anything to go by, they’ll probably be debating it for the next two millennia as well. Ajahn Brahm’s view that there’s no five-sense door experience in even the first jhāna was also the view defended by the Theravadins at the Third Council, while Ajahn Thanissaro’s view to the contrary was defended by the Pūrvaśailīyas.

That being so, I don’t think there’s any need to look to the Sāṃkhya-darśana, or any other non-Buddhist darśana, for the source of Ajahn Brahm’s view. Leaving aside the more extreme “jhāna lite” conceptions (e.g. those of Vimalaraṃsi and Leigh Brasington) most modern Buddhist conceptions of jhāna fall well within the spectrum of views that were historically contested among different Buddhist schools.

https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?p=560317#p560317

@Dhammanando

Here are links to a few of the threads [on the suttacentral forum]. I’m afraid some are rather lengthy, but you can save time by skipping all the ill-informed posts from the Vimalaramsi and Brasington followers and just attending to the posts of Sylvester, Sujāto and Brahmali (in effect representing the Theravada position as it was at the time of the Third Council), and those of Frank and Silence (in effect representing the position taken at the same council by the Pubbaseliya school).

As at the Third Council, both sides believe their position to be the correct reading of the suttas and neither side is basing its case on later works like the Visuddhimagga. Unfortunately one of the two Pubbaseliya posters (yes, I mean you, Frank!) insists on begging the question by calling his own view “the straight EBT interpretation”, and poisoning the well (and begging the question) by dubbing his opponents’ view “the revised Visuddhimagga interpretation”.

Hearing sounds in jhāna

Vitakka and vicāra (jhāna factors)

Pīti, sukha, kāya in jhāna: mental, physical, or both?

Can you hear sound and feel body in jhāna?

EBTs which indicate the experience of the body disappears while meditating?

‘parisuddhena cetasā pariyodātena’ and ‘citte parisuddhe pariyodāte’

And if your enthusiasm hasn’t waned after the above, you’ll probably find a few more with google:

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