Can We Hear Sound in Jhāna?

[Mkoll]

I do not hear sound even when I read a book.

You're still hearing sound, but you're not noticing it because you're engrossed in your book and not paying attention to the background auditory stimuli. It's a form of neural adaptation/habituation. If a sufficiently different and intense auditory stimulus went off near you, say an airhorn, you can bet your butt you'd hear it.

The question here is whether the person in jhana would hear it. My impression is that it depends on what definition of "jhana" we're using.

[SarathW]

If a sufficiently different and intense auditory stimulus went off near you, say an airhorn, you can bet your butt you'd hear it.

I think this will be applicable to Buddhist Jhana too.
However I am not sure how this will work for a person in Nirodha Samapatthi as they do not have thoughts.

[SarathW]

I do not hear sound even when I read a book.

There you've got your ekaggata!

Yes that may not be the right kaggata. (as per Jhana formula)

[Buddha Vacana]

Yes that may not be the right kaggata. (as per Jhana formula)

There is no ekaggata in the jhana formula.

Also, in the suttas, ekaggata and its derivatives don't have such a narrow meaning as in the Vsm and as many teach it:

AN 5.151: one should be ekaggacitta while listening to a Dhamma talk

suṇanto saddhammaṃ ... avikkhittacitto dhammaṃ suṇāti ekaggacitto yoniso ca manasi karoti.

while listening to the good Dhamma ... one listens to the Dhamma with an undistracted and one-pointed mind; one attends to it appropriately.

AN 4.12: one should have cittaṃ ekaggaṃ while walking:

“carato cepi ... samāhitaṃ cittaṃ ekaggaṃ, carampi, bhikkhave, bhikkhu ... samitaṃ āraddhavīriyo pahitatto’ti vuccati

if while walking ... his mind is concentrated and one-pointed, then that bhikkhu is said to be ... continuously energetic and resolute while walking.

So it seems that meaning would also apply in the case of your reading a book.

[SarathW]

So it seems that meaning would also apply in the case of your reading a book.

Yes if you are reading a Dhamma book it will be right concentration.

[SarathW]

Good sutta.

"That being the case, Uttara, then a blind person will have developed faculties, and a deaf person will have developed faculties, according to the words of the brahman Parasiri. For a blind person does not see forms with the eye, and a deaf person does not hear sounds with the ear."



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

[form]

This is the most interesting thread I ever read in this forum. Something I pondered over for years and still have no clear answer.

I would think one of the characteristics of jhanas aside from levels, is stability. So unless one is highly trained, the tendency to slip off is highly likely. The skill of emerging from jhana is another one of the four jhanic skills mentioned in the Nikaya.

I personally consider entering the jhanas as one's consciousness entering the more secluded part of the mind, deeper and deeper into unconscious gradually as the level progress. At that level, language tendency is minimal, probably non existent. Insights appeared in a non language form when one emerge from a jhana. Stepping down from a higher to a lower jhana appears to have some benefits in term of stability for the lower jhana. There is also calming benefits that last for a while after proper meditation. So it is hard to tell if it is jhana or not.

[netlava]

The Mahaparinibbana sutta discusses this topic at length. An excerpt from the sutta:

“Then, Pukkusa, this thought occurred to him, ‘How wonderful it is, and marvellous, that those gone forth should pass their time in a state of mind so calm that though conscious and awake they neither see nor hear torrential rain beating and splashing, and lightning flashing, and thunder crashing.’ After expressing his deep faith in me, and paying homage, he departed.”

Also, poem Sirivaddha (Thag 1.41) from the Theragatha describes how lightning can't shake one in jhana:

Lightning lands on the cleft
between Vebhara & Pandava,

• but,

having gone to the cleft in the mountains,
he's absorbed in jhana — the son

• of the one without compare,
  the one who is Such.

[LuminousBliss]

No, it's definitely not possible to hear any sound in Jhana.

Before absorption you still might be aware of some sounds, but you are not getting distracted by them and they sound really far away.
In jhana you are cut of from the external world.

[Dmytro]

There's an excellent article by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

Silence Isn’t Mandatory
SENSORY PERCEPTION IN THE JHĀNAS

http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writ ... datory.pdf

[robertk]

There's an excellent article by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

Silence Isn’t Mandatory
SENSORY PERCEPTION IN THE JHĀNAS

http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writ ... datory.pdf

to me it's anti-Theravada and conveniently ignores the areas of the Tipitaka that disagree with his beliefs