[derrida]

It is not even access concentration the Jhana 1 description. It is "just" the natural joy that arises from doing wholesome states like ethical behavior or generosity or unconditional love. (Which is good! Really good! just lets not appropriate the term 'jhana')

It is great people are discovering that there is a happiness within that is not dependent on getting things or things being a certain way and you can increase and cultivate wholesome states that are outside the sensory world. But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body. They are rather like a boat and its wake... the wake is the feelings but the boat is something else - they are the wholesome states. We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable. For instance with metta the boat would be the intention "may I be happy" the feelings are the by-product or wake. Jhana is proper like a boat that suddenly unexpectedly hits the shore... It rocks and blows the mind (and as the mind contains model of the world - it feels like the world shook a bit then froze). A good "geeks guide" is "Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond" written by someone who finished a physics degree at cambridge and spent 9 years with Ajahn Chah.

If we instead mistake something else for "jhana" like some positive feels, we're going to be stuck cultivating a local maxima. It's not to say the practice is wrong, it's actually quite good. It's just not jhana. We should listen to the professional community just like we listen to the professionals of physics in academia, instead of some posts from people on the internet that have done a few 30 day retreats.

But please do not call it jhana and have some humility ... these terms are central to some of the okdest institutions in the world and theres a professional community in the dharmic traditions who literally do this full time all over asia.

If someone wants to hear a competent speaker who has done the necessary time and training at those institutions and is also trained in the conventional university system, someone like Ajahn Brahm (Theoretical Physics Cambridge) Beth Upton (Economics Cambridge) or Shalia Catherine or Sayadaw U Jagara

[burke]

I dunno, I think it’s worthwhile to acknowledge that this describes the (very?) shallow end of the pool but these language game land wars are profoundly uninteresting to me.

This–and TWIM jhanas in general–certainly involve the arising of the relevant jhana factors. People feel real and somewhat life-changing experiences of piti, sukha, equanimity… are those, due to limited concentration, below some critical threshold to earn the name “jhana”? Sure there are reasonable arguments for this position but it’s just a language game. Both strong and weak versions of these states are real phenomena that lead to increases in wellbeing.

Besides, it’s not even entirely clear that the earliest texts are actually describing something all _that_ much more concentrated than Nadia does, although the later visuddhimagga most certainly does, and those teachers certainly teach it.

I’ve heard some teachers contrast Sutta-jhanas to visuddhimagga-jhanas and I think that’s a reasonable distinction.

[mping]

Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one.

So it's actually very harmful to do these claims; each dhyana (or jhana) level corresponds to a certain level of wisdom, and you are supposed to have less and less afflictions as you move up. The problem with meditation training is that is very common (and easy) to get sidetracked for 10 years thinking you have attainment but you are stuck. The Chinese style is to find a good teacher, an enlightened teacher, a so called Good Knowing Advisor who can certify your attainment or put you on the right track. Because otherwise it's just wishful thinking.

Best or luck to the author, but like the GP said, have some humility and find a competent, certified teacher. Making false claims, even out of ignorance will prevent you from accessing the proper instructions in the future.

[nataliste]

>Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one.

To be fair, the Pali Canon is filled with episodes of followers spontaneously achieving arahantship after practicing only a brief time. I'm having trouble finding the sutta, but even the Buddha says with a single moment of appropriate practice, enlightenment is obtainable immediately.

[mping]

Sure! But those were not ordinary people but special disciples, who had accumulated alot of blessings over a long time, thus were able to meet the Buddha and become enlightened with a couple of sentences from the Buddha. Still, the Buddha himself certified their enlightenment, they didn't go around claiming it themselves. Huge difference.

[derrida]

> these language game land wars

"Energy" is also a "language game war" between internet posts on physics and professional physics.

> This–and TWIM jhanas in general–certainly involve the arising of the relevant jhana factors.

Yes. So someone suggested calling them "mindfulness of the jhana factors". Also the word for joy in several languages is "piti". We can talk of joy and happiness, and see it's not the same as jhana. Is any joy and happiness from non-sensory wholesome states jhana? No.

> People feel real and somewhat life-changing experiences of piti, sukha, equanimity… are those, due to limited concentration, below some critical threshold to earn the name “jhana”?

Yes I don't want to dismiss these states they are wholesome, just not jhana. Do cultivate joy in wholesome states!

> Besides, it’s not even entirely clear that the earliest texts are actually describing something all _that_ much more concentrated than Nadia does

Well, how do the early texts describe the insights that happen as a result of jhana? they are quite deep and quite challenging to conventional world view (just like if someone did an excellent physics experiment). Consider AN 9.42... senses disappear to the mind at the first jhana https://suttacentral.net/an9.42/en/sujato

[burke]

And anyway… isn’t it the case that Theravadan meditation practice went practically extinct before being reconstructed from the suttas and commentaries sometime in the 18th/19th centuries? Vipassana at least was reinvented as such. Unless some enclave somewhere preserved an actually unbroken thread of jhana practice based on what was written in the suttas (maybe there was?), it weakens the authority of interpretation argument anyway!

[derrida]

I think there's always been monks meditating following the vinaya strictly in forests. They may not have a marketing department.

However that sort of question " isn’t it the case that Theravadan meditation practice went practically extinct" is a very theravada move as the "way (vada) of the elders (thera)" it always asks "is this modern buddhism really what the buddha taught" and that characteristic emphasis at the center distinguishes it from the mahayana

[burke]

Fair. Probably this phenomenon is more limited to Vipassana specifically than I was guessing.

I take the point about the Theravadan rhetorical move here but I still feel like at the very least the original texts deserve to not be written _out_ of the definition of a word if they can be reasonably interpreted to mean something different from what’s practiced in schools working from later turnings and teachings.

That leaves room for determining what is a reasonable interpretation though, and I am extremely far from any kind of authority on that.

[burke]

> Well, how do the early texts describe the insights that happen as a result of jhana?

The main reference I can think of off the top of my head is something along the lines of “with a mind thus purified [by jhana] the meditator inclines the mind to [insight practice]”, which feels compatible with either the very strong Vsm version or the weaker end of loose interpretations of the suttas. Even a really really weak experience of J4-flavored equanimity still reduces stray selfing enough to make insight practice work better. Obviously this effect is magnified many many times by the pa auk style jhana states.

Perhaps there are other specific claims I haven’t read.

[edit to respond to AN reference in edit] interesting, first I’ve seen this one. On one hand it does seem to imply a slightly higher level of concentration than other suttas I’ve read but even here it only talks about elimination of desirable/arousing sensory phenomena, not the sense of “pretty much all sensual phenomena” that Vsm points to. I don’t actually have a super hard time squaring this with what Jhourney and TWIM teach.

[derrida]

Another one to read would be the Uppakilesa Sutta (MN128) which the buddha is giving specific meditation advice to someone who is experiencing lights but not yet cultivated first jhana. It's an awesome sutta as it also connects that depth of practice with communal harmony and how that sort of inner emotional "good-with-oneself" connects with deep meditation and it's also a clear example of the buddha talking about first hand experience in a phenomenological way that we see common today.

[burke]

Neat, that is a good one, thanks!

[lukasb]

I mean according to the suttas there's no directed thought after the second jhana, right? That seems different from what she's describing.

[burke]

Vitakka and vicara are these two terms translated as applied and sustained thought or so, and are kind of famously debated in terms of their specific meaning.

Some translations/interpretations just take this to mean that the second jhana is “stable” and doesn’t require constantly redirecting your attention at it to sustain it, while the first takes active maintenance. Others interpret it in more of an “any kind of thinking” sense.

[_yb2s]

This is what I expected just from the title- anytime I’ve seen the jhanas mentioned online most of the responses are “that’s not the jhanas, this person does not even understand what they are” and then the followup comments are each someone saying the same about the above commenter.

[thelittleone]

Isn't the goal 'may I be happy' at odds with the underlying philosophy as it ignores the reality that without sadness, we cannot understand being happy. Wouldn't 'may i be at peace' or 'may i be present' be more suitable? And even futher 'may I' is a wishing of a future state which is a attachment to a certain state and which also means we are not at peace nor present. If we constantly wish this, are we not missing the point?

[catchnear4321]

the point is as artificial as any of the rest of it

monkeys colliding in the dark, chittering about what they feel

to “we” it is to flee it

[lewispollard]

The description in brackets for each jhana, if that's what you're referring to, seem to be sourced from "dhammawiki.org".

> But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body.

I mean, they are referred to (the first 4 jhanas) as the "rupa jhanas" - that is, form or bodily jhanas. That's because they're coarse and involve sensations of the body and materiality.

> We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable.

I think the article may gloss over it a bit, but the author does seem to say this too - in that the meditation practice aspect of it is just a way of organising attention such that the jhana state is invoked (they describe it as like a "sneeze", in that there is an intentional, physical build up followed by an involuntary and hard-hitting release, and that they hit "hard and fast") - and then the practical technique aspect of the sitting is not really useful because the jhana takes over. That sounds pretty accurate to me, as a practitioner of Theravada for 10 years or so.

[dnissley]

What do you think about twim jhanas, which are similarly "light"?

[derrida]

I'm not that familiar with them but the people I know that do the traditional jhanas I think some think they are mistaking a profound state called "bhavanga" for jhana. (It's mentioned page 140 of Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm and in the first few pages of Pa Auks book as something often mistaken for jhana and nibanna - a sort of cessation).