What's the point of jhana?

The cultivation of calm or tranquility and the development of concentration
Spiny Norman
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What's the point of jhana?

Post by Spiny Norman »

What is the purpose of developing jhana in the context of the 8-fold path?

We've touched on this in the "jhana and hindrances" thread, but I feel it would be interesting to address the question directly.

As a starting point I'd like to observe that samma samadhi is defined in terms of jhana.

Your thoughts?
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Modus.Ponens
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Modus.Ponens »

To paraphrase Leigh Brasington, if you try to cut a table in half with butter knife, it will take very long. If you do it with a sharpened knife it will take less time. The time you spend developing jhana is compensated next.

Besides, the path without samatha is very hard. What better than walk the path happily?
'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' - Jhana Sutta
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by mikenz66 »

Numerous suttas have the gradual training pattern of:
Virtue, sense restraint, mindfulness and alertness, abandoning the hindrances, jhana, knowledge and liberation. Jhana seems to be a preparation for liberating insight in those suttas:
MN 27 wrote:“Again, with the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the fourth jhāna, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. ...

When his concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, he directs it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. ...
... he directs it to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings. ...
... he directs it to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. He understands as it actually is: ‘This is suffering’;…‘This is the origin of suffering’;…‘This is the cessation of suffering’;…‘This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering’;…‘These are the taints’;…‘This is the origin of the taints’;…‘This is the cessation of the taints’;…‘This is the way leading to the cessation of the taints.’
http://suttacentral.net/mn27/en/
Or: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .horn.html

:anjali:
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Mkoll »

I posted this in the "Jhana and Hindrances" thread but it applies here. The experience of jhana is incomparably peaceful and sublime. With the wisdom one has developed, one sees that even the most peaceful and sublime states are impermanent and conditioned. One's mind becomes "disgusted" even with jhana and one directs the mind to the deathless, Nibbana.

To me, this sounds like the apex of the conditioned path and is something most of us needn't concern ourselves with yet. But I would surmise that knowing this idea will be useful when the time comes.
"And what, Ananda is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters? Here, with seclusion from the acquisitions, with the abandoning of unwholesome states, with the complete tranquillization of bodily inertia, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.

"Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: 'This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbana. If he is steady in that, he attains the destruction of the taints. But if he does not attain the destruction of the taints because of that desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then with the destruction of the five lower fetters he becomes one due to reappear spontaneously [in the Pure Abodes] and there attain final Nibbana without ever returning from that world. This is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters
-MN 64, Mahamalunkyaputta Sutta, trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
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manas
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by manas »

Well, jhana is limb number eight of the Noble Eightfold Path, so obviously we will have to learn it at some stage to attain full release, whether in this or in a future life. I did read, however, a well-written and, to my mind, convincing argument by Bhikkhu Bodhi (as I recall), that jhana is most likely not essential for attaining stream-entry, though. But when different practitioners define the standard of what jhana 'really' is differently, that issue gets clouded. Because might it be that, some folks are practicing jhana as described in the suttas unawares, because they have been taught that it's only 'real' jhana if it's in accord with the Visuddhimagga, and thus label their samadhi as 'neighbourhood' or 'access', terms which aiui are not mentioned in the suttas in relation to jhana...?

Anyway, as I understand it: concentration (not the ideal translation for 'samadhi' so I've heard, but will have to do) is the supporting condition for 'the knowledge and vision of things as they really are', one of the stages towards full release:
"The knowledge and vision of things as they really are, monks, also has a supporting condition, I say, it does not lack a supporting condition. And what is the supporting condition for the knowledge and vision of things as they really are? 'Concentration' should be the reply.

Yathābhūtañāṇadassanampahaṃ bhikkhave saupanisaṃ vadāmi, no anupanisaṃ. Kā ca bhikkhave, yathābhūtañāṇadassanassa upanisā? Samādhītissa vacanīyaṃ.
(from the Upanisa Sutta: Discourse on Supporting Conditions: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .bodh.html


Does 'samadhi' in this specific context refer to jhana, or to the principle of samadhi in general? I'm not sure about that (maybe another could elaborate?) But we can note, that 'samma samadhi' [emphasis added] is often simply defined as the four jhanas.

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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by cooran »

Hello Manas,

Bhikkhu Bodhi seems to indicate that, though Jhanas may be attained earlier, they are necessary for a Non-Returner onwards:

Jhanas and the lay Disciple according to the Pali Suttas
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha267.htm

With metta,
Chris
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Spiny Norman »

mikenz66 wrote:Numerous suttas have the gradual training pattern of:
Virtue, sense restraint, mindfulness and alertness, abandoning the hindrances, jhana, knowledge and liberation. Jhana seems to be a preparation for liberating insight in those suttas:
So in simple terms is it correct to say that sati is the foundation for samadhi ( ie jhana ), which in turn is the foundation for ditthi ( ie insight )?

And is there a correlelation here with the 7 factors of enlightenment?
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Spiny Norman
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Mkoll wrote: The experience of jhana is incomparably peaceful and sublime. With the wisdom one has developed, one sees that even the most peaceful and sublime states are impermanent and conditioned. One's mind becomes "disgusted" even with jhana and one directs the mind to the deathless, Nibbana.
So wisdom is dependent on the experience of jhana?
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Ben
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Ben »

Spiny Norman wrote:What is the purpose of developing jhana...?
It keeps one off the street, and off the internet.
Developing the jhana factors is recommended.
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in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
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manas
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by manas »

cooran wrote:Hello Manas,

Bhikkhu Bodhi seems to indicate that, though Jhanas may be attained earlier, they are necessary for a Non-Returner onwards:

Jhanas and the lay Disciple according to the Pali Suttas
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha267.htm

With metta,
Chris
Thank you Chris for the clarification. I will read that link with interest.

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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Anagarika »

This article by Ven. Thanissaro seems to place the jhanas at the center of the meditative path: http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writ ... 0Jhana.pdf

The purpose is to get the mind steady enough, long enough, so it can see. When it sees, it can let go. When it lets go, it’s free. That’s what this practice is all about. That’s what the Buddha meant when he said, “Go, do jhana.” It encompasses all of the aspects of developing the mind.

I read the Bhikkhu Bodhi article, and it is interesting to see the argument that stream entry may be attainable without jhana. By comparison, Ven. Thanissaro suggests that jhana is at the core of the meditation process. Jhana establishing samatha and vipassana, and then when in jhana, elevating samatha and vipassana to a higher level. This reading resonates with me. Why else would the Buddha admonish the monks to find the root of a tree or an empty building and "do jhana" unless it was fundamental to the path? Perhaps Bhikkhu Bodhi's scholarship involves the later commentaries and Abhi views to such an extent that this fundamental point becomes blurred. I don't have an answer, but it's an interesting question.
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Pondera »

"Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the mental fermentations. Or, if not, then — through this very dhamma-passion, this very dhamma-delight, and from the total wasting away of the first five of the fetters[1] — he is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world.

"'I tell you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the first jhana.' Thus was it said, and in reference to this was it said.
An.9.36
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Interesting that "unbinding" can be realized in any of the jhanas.

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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Dhammanando »

BuddhaSoup wrote:
Ven. Thanissaro: The purpose is to get the mind steady enough, long enough, so it can see. When it sees, it can let go. When it lets go, it’s free. That’s what this practice is all about. That’s what the Buddha meant when he said, “Go, do jhana.” It encompasses all of the aspects of developing the mind.
I read the Bhikkhu Bodhi article, and it is interesting to see the argument that stream entry may be attainable without jhana. By comparison, Ven. Thanissaro suggests that jhana is at the core of the meditation process.
I don't think their respective statements are in conflict. Bhikkhu Bodhi is using 'jhāna' in the sense of the states of meditative absorption (the four rūpajjhānas), while Ven. Thanissaro is using it in its broader Sutta sense, where it is virtually synonymous with bhāvanā and encompasses the full range of activities involved in mental development.

In the Suttas the sense in which Bhikkhu Bodhi is using the noun 'jhāna' is its primary sense, while Thanissaro's use is a secondary one. But with the verb 'jhāyati' it's the other way around. Now it's the sense of mental development in general (i.e. of both calm and insight) that becomes primary, while the narrower sense of 'to enter one of the absorptions' becomes secondary (and of rather uncommon occurrence in the Suttas).

For this reason I think the rendering of "Jhāyatha, bhikkhave!" as "Bhikkhus, go do jhāna!" is apt to be tendentious and misleading, inasmuch as the noun jhāna will be likely to be construed in the narrower of the two senses when in fact it's the broader one that is more often intended.
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tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by fivebells »

Thanissaro covers the translation of this phrase in detail in Go, Do Jhana (pdf). While his brief translation is still "Go, Do Jhana," his explanation agrees with Dhammanando.
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Re: What's the point of jhana?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Dhammanando wrote: Bhikkhu Bodhi is using 'jhāna' in the sense of the states of meditative absorption (the four rūpajjhānas), while Ven. Thanissaro is using it in its broader Sutta sense, where it is virtually synonymous with bhāvanā and encompasses the full range of activities involved in mental development.
I'm not sure about this second interpretation because in the suttas the absorption factors are described quite explicitly. But if this analysis is correct, which sense of jhana would you say applies to fullfilling samma samadhi?
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