how do you know Jhana and Nibbana are real?

[ibelieve]

Hi,

This is my first post and please forgive my English, which is not my native language.

I having been reading suttas for a year and I have a question I cannot answer: how can you know Jhana and Nibbana are real rather than some tricks played just in your brain?

My partial answer to the question is that if you can obtain some psychic power through meditation, at least you know that there is indeed something beyond modern science. However this is not a good answer obviously.

What is your answer to the question?

Thank you!

ibelieve

[Goofaholix]

How do you know anything else you experience is real and not a trick played just in your brain?

Nothing is certain but you just have to use your discernment, compare the experience with what you've experienced in the past, and decide for yourself.

[Mkoll]

How do you know anything else you experience is real and not a trick played just in your brain?

Nothing is certain but you just have to use your discernment, compare the experience with what you've experienced in the past, and decide for yourself.

There's a few ways to respond to this question, including what Goofaholix said. Here are two more.

1) What does "real" mean when you ask this question? Real as compared to what? If what "real" means in this context can't be fully described and defined, I'm afraid the question has no meaning.

2) Everything we experience is "tricks in the brain" and I think this is agreed upon by modern science and the Buddha; NB I'm not making a solipsist argument here. According to the former, everything we experience is processed by the brain before it is experienced. For example, the eye takes in light which is converted into an electrical signal that is then sent via the optic nerve to the brain which translates that signal into the images we see. A similar electrical process occurs with the other senses. According to the Buddha, there is "the All".

"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

"As you say, lord," the monks responded.

The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
SN 35.23

[Dan74]

I don't know about Nibbana for a fact, though I think it is very likely that unbelievably perceptive and wise people like the Buddha and subsequent masters were not just fibbing.

But for myself, it is enough to verify that this practice leads to positive results.

[ibelieve]

Thanks everyone for your answers and it helps!

I think I need to judge by myself and some faith is necessary. Indeed I believe in the Buddha and the so many master after him.

Have a good day!

ibelieve

[Modus.Ponens]

Hello

As for the jhanas, there is this study discussed in this thread: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=18584

Unfortunately, for some reason I can't really grasp, doing what Leigh Brasington did is taboo among buddhists, especialy theravadins.

As for nibbana there's no study that I'm aware of. But if you watch enough dhamma talks on youtube, you will know that some monks clearly talk from experience _ by the body language and facial expressions.

But there's nothing like aiming for it to experience it ourselves.

[Babadhari]

But there's nothing like aiming for it to experience it ourselves.

or from what i've read:

not aiming for it!

[evanescing]

As for Nibbana: if Nibbana is defined as the state that results from the complete extinguishment of desire, aversion and delusion, then to demonstrate its reality is simple. Supposing, after practicing and studying the Dhamma for some time, you find that desire, aversion and delusion have decreased in you, then you can infer that further practice and study will further decrease the mental hindrances, until they vanish completely.

[Modus.Ponens]

As for Nibbana: if Nibbana is defined as the state that results from the complete extinguishment of desire, aversion and delusion, then to demonstrate its reality is simple. Supposing, after practicing and studying the Dhamma for some time, you find that desire, aversion and delusion have decreased in you, then you can infer that further practice and study will further decrease the mental hindrances, until they vanish completely.

The problem is that it may have an assymptotic behaviour. Meaning that you aproach a hindrance-less state, but never get there. And the most important consequence of this is that the stages of enlightenment would not be irreversible states.

[fivebells]

It's not really a useful question. Jhana and Nibbana are terms describing experiences which develop as one practices. The point of the practice is release from stress. The questions are always "Where/what is the stress? What is its cause? How can I abandon the cause?" If you practice for these questions, you rarely have much doubt about what to do next for as long as there is stress, and you get ongoing benefits as you learn the nature of the stress and how to release it.

[culaavuso]

It's not really a useful question. Jhana and Nibbana are terms describing experiences which develop as one practices. The point of the practice is release from stress. The questions are always "Where/what is the stress? What is its cause? How can I abandon the cause?" If you practice for these questions, you rarely have much doubt about what to do next for as long as there is stress, and you get ongoing benefits as you learn the nature of the stress and how to release it.

Well said.

SN 12.15

By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

By & large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), & biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view.

[ibelieve]

There are lots of ways to release from stress, for example, taking drugs. However I know that taking drugs just gives you hallucination, something only happened in your brain. My understanding of what the Buddha said is that there is something called nibbana beyond what we can see, what we can hear, even what we can think of, and of course it is beyond modern science. Also nibbana is more than something created in your brain only. Again please forgive my poor English.

My question is, when we have reached jhana or nibbana, how do we know it is not only something fabricated in our brain?

My current answer is that probably when we reach it, we will know. So the most important thing right now is to "do it" instead of thinking about it.

Thanks a lot for everyone for your answers and have a great weekend!

ibelieve

It's not really a useful question. Jhana and Nibbana are terms describing experiences which develop as one practices. The point of the practice is release from stress. The questions are always "Where/what is the stress? What is its cause? How can I abandon the cause?" If you practice for these questions, you rarely have much doubt about what to do next for as long as there is stress, and you get ongoing benefits as you learn the nature of the stress and how to release it.

Well said.

SN 12.15

By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

By & large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), & biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view.

[culaavuso]

There are lots of ways to release from stress, for example, taking drugs.

This does not result in a lasting release from stress. Often as the drug wears off, or as the consumer's tolerances increase, stress once again arises and often to an even greater degree than before the drug was taken.

My question is, when we have reached jhana or nibbana, how do we know it is not only something fabricated in our brain?

As was mentioned above, it would be helpful to first understand how you know anything is real, or what "real" means in this context. Without the notion of "real" being meaningfully defined, the question itself is not meaningful.

1) What does "real" mean when you ask this question? Real as compared to what? If what "real" means in this context can't be fully described and defined, I'm afraid the question has no meaning.

2) Everything we experience is "tricks in the brain" and I think this is agreed upon by modern science and the Buddha; NB I'm not making a solipsist argument here. According to the former, everything we experience is processed by the brain before it is experienced. For example, the eye takes in light which is converted into an electrical signal that is then sent via the optic nerve to the brain which translates that signal into the images we see. A similar electrical process occurs with the other senses.

Perhaps worth considering in regards to the question of what "real" might mean is the brain in a vat thought experiment.

[fivebells]

There are lots of ways to release from stress, for example, taking drugs.

The drugs I have been given in response to stress have merely dulled some stress reactions, they haven't touched the causes of the stress at all, so for me they weren't any kind of release. In fact, the causes of the stress generally found a way around the dulling, making me worse off than before.

[fivebells]

My question is, when we have reached jhana or nibbana, how do we know it is not only something fabricated in our brain?

I can't speak for Nibbana, but jhana is a tool for settling the mind down for the purpose of insight practice. If what you're calling jhana is achieving that purpose, that is good enough for now. "By their fruits shall ye know them."