Can we attain Jhana while we have a sexual relationship?

[Mkoll]

Can we attain Jhana (at least first Jhana) while we have a sexual relationship?

I've read about people attaining (sutta) jhana from intense sadness. And I've read it from different sources.

So my guess is that it is possible. However, it's clear that it's not what the Buddha advised. I don't believe it can be made into a consistent practice with nibbana as the goal.

Can you provide references for those sources?

[Modus.Ponens]

Can we attain Jhana (at least first Jhana) while we have a sexual relationship?

I've read about people attaining (sutta) jhana from intense sadness. And I've read it from different sources.

So my guess is that it is possible. However, it's clear that it's not what the Buddha advised. I don't believe it can be made into a consistent practice with nibbana as the goal.

Can you provide references for those sources?

They were, at least, on a yoga forum and on dharma overground. I'm not going to search them, since they are private experiences and they do not constitute "evidence" of anything, really. As I said, I think it's possible on ocasion, but not as a consistent way of practicing (sutta) jhana. Let alone hard jhana!

[Mkoll]

They were, at least, on a yoga forum and on dharma overground. I'm not going to search them, since they are private experiences and they do not constitute "evidence" of anything, really. As I said, I think it's possible on ocasion, but not as a consistent way of practicing (sutta) jhana. Let alone hard jhana!

No worries about not searching them. It's just when I read the word "sources", my mind jumped to something like suttas or commentary or some other sort of authority.

[K.Dhamma]

Can we attain Jhana (at least first Jhana) while we have a sexual relationship?

Yes.

[LXNDR]

Can we attain Jhana (at least first Jhana) while we have a sexual relationship?

Yes.

is this really better than sex?

[TheNoBSBuddhist]

Only one way to find out.

Staaaart sittin'!

[SarathW]

I think Jhanic pleasure is sensual.
Nibbanic pleasure is not sensual.

well, it's of course up to you whether to believe what the sutta tells

maybe definition of 'sensual pleasure' must be established to decide what is what

Hi Lxndr
I think you are correct.
However I am not sure how Jhanic factors come to this question.
Pithy is attained before Ekagata.
So unless you attain Ekagata (concentration) you still have not attained First Jhana.

========
It appears that Sensual pleasures does not include intellect.

"Monks, there are these five strings of sensuality. Which five? Forms cognizable via the eye — agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. Sounds cognizable via the ear — agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. Aromas cognizable via the nose — agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. Tastes cognizable via the tongue — agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. Tactile sensations cognizable via the body — agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. These are the five strings of sensuality.


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

[Spiny Norman]

is this really better than sex?

A quote from Lord Chesterfield: "Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable"

[TheNoBSBuddhist]

Argue with that!

[Phena]

I think Jhanic pleasure is sensual.
Nibbanic pleasure is not sensual.

Jhana is seclusion from sensual pleasure, not sensual pleasure. Remember the Five Hindrances are suppressed. The whole basis and purpose of Jhana is that it is not a sensual, worldly pleasure.

Of course jhana is still a fabricated state, but a skilful fabricated state.

[Mkoll]

I think Jhanic pleasure is sensual.
Nibbanic pleasure is not sensual.

Jhana is seclusion from sensual pleasure, not sensual pleasure. Remember the Five Hindrances are suppressed. The whole basis and purpose of Jhana is that it is not a sensual, worldly pleasure.

Of course jhana is still a fabricated state, but a skilful fabricated state.

[Anagarika]

Of course jhana is still a fabricated state, but a skilful fabricated state.

I would argue that jhana is the natural state of the release of fabrications, and insight into the deathless. It is the state of mind free of mundane attachments. It is the opposite of a fabricated state, but the state of the mind in its sublime free state.

[culaavuso]

Of course jhana is still a fabricated state, but a skilful fabricated state.

This first jhana is fabricated & intended. Now whatever is fabricated & intended is inconstant & subject to cessation.
...
(Similarly with the second, third, and fourth jhanas.)
...
This attainment of the infinitude of space is fabricated & intended. Now whatever is fabricated & intended is inconstant & subject to cessation.
...
(Similarly with the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness and the dimension of nothingness.)

Udayin, there are these five strings of sensuality. ... Now, any pleasure & happiness that arises dependent on these five strings of sensuality is called sensual pleasure, a filthy pleasure, a run-of-the-mill pleasure, an ignoble pleasure. And of this pleasure I say that it is not to be cultivated, not to be developed, not to be pursued, that it is to be feared.
...
Now, there is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities — enters & remains in the first jhana ... second jhana ... third jhana ... fourth jhana ... This is called renunciation-pleasure, seclusion-pleasure, calm-pleasure, self-awakening-pleasure. And of this pleasure I say that it is to be cultivated, to be developed, to be pursued, that it is not to be feared.

[fig tree]

I don't know whether the commentary has anything to say about whether the individual accomplished laypeople mentioned in the canon had been having sex. I seem to remember Dhammadinna and Visakha described as having abstained from relations after he became a non-returner, but I don't know whether that was an embellishment or not, and I am unaware of whether he is stated as having attained jhana first. Without any reason to think otherwise, I would suppose the story to have been based on some laypeople who succeeded in experiencing jhana and more while living a household life in an otherwise customary way.

Overall, I suspect that if there are no obvious statements in the canon or commentary saying either "you have to be abstinent to attain jhana" and no explicit examples of sexually active laypeople who experienced jhana, most likely it's because when someone did, there wasn't anybody there who felt it important to talk about their sex life.

Fig Tree

[Anagarika]

How do we reconcile the above with AN 9.36 : Jhana Sutta ? I am offering this not as a rebuttal, but as a thought for consideration. If we consider jhana a fabrication ( or, "conditioned and volitionally produced" per Ven. Bodhi), how is a practice that is itself a mundane fabrication a vehicle for the "turning away...of fabrications..of the inconstant, stressful..."?

From AN 9.36 : "There is the case where a monk, secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born of seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, not-self. He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.'"