Jhanas and Nirvana

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User1249x
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Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 8:50 pm

Re: Jhanas and Nirvana

Post by User1249x »

mikenz66 wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 6:27 pm
User1249x wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 1:42 pm
budo wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 7:13 am The jhanas are required for anything above sotapanna.
Hi Sutta support for this friend?
There is an extensive analysis here: https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books10/Bhi ... ple%20.htm

:heart:
Mike
From the text you linked to;
I myself believe there is strong evidence in the Nikāyas that the jhānas become an essential factor for those intent on advancing from the stage of once-returning to that of non-returner. I will review the texts that corroborate this thesis later in this paper.
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there can be no denying the role of the jhānas in bringing the path to fulfilment, but here I shall be concerned principally with the question whether or not they are categorically necessary to win the first fruit of the path.
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It could be that attainment of jhāna is necessary to complete the development of the path, becoming mandatory at a relatively late point in the disciple's progress. That is, it may be a prerequisite for reaching one of the higher paths and fruits, but may not be indispensable for reaching the first path and fruit.
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Though the possibility that there might be non-returners without jhānas cannot be ruled out, from the Nikāyas we can elicit several reasons why we might normally expect a non-returner to have access to them.
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The Commentaries speak even of a sukkhavipassaka arahant, an arahant who has gained the goal entirely through "dry insight," without any attainment of form-sphere jhāna at all. Although such a type is not explicitly recognized in the Nikāyas, the question may be raised whether the Commentaries, in asserting the possibility of arahantship without attainment of jhāna in the mundane portion of the path, have deviated from the Canon or brought to light a viable possibility implict in the older texts. The famous Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta declares, in its conclusion, that all those who earnestly dedicate themselves to uninterrupted practice of the four establishments of mindfulness are bound to reap one of two fruits: either arahantship in this very life or, if any residue of clinging remains, the stage of non-returning. While several exercises within the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta are certainly capable of inducing the jhānas, the system as a whole seems oriented towards direct insight rather than towards the jhānas.[40] Thus this opens the question whether the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta might not be propounding a way of practice that leads all the way to non-returning, even to arahantship, without requiring attainment of the jhānas. This, however, is another question, one that lies beyond the scope of this paper.
Thanks for the paper, friend. The analysis is ok but it has mistakes and is incomplete but the conclusions reached are more or less correct imho.
This distinction allows the Commentaries to hold simultaneously two theses regarding the relation of jhāna to the path: (i) every path and fruition attainment, from the stage of stream-entry up, is also a jhāna, and thus all path-attainers are attainers of supramundane jhāna;
I like how this was pinned down. if one asks a stream-enterer without jhana whether he has attained mundane jhanas he will say that he is without lower jhana but it does not mean that he is without a supramundane jhana attainment.

I still think that making a categorical statement;
budo wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 7:13 am The jhanas are required for anything above sotapanna.
is inappropriate because such a thing can not be inferred from the Sutta to be established beyond doubt afaik.
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