





THE JHANAS IN THERAVADAN BUDDHIST MEDITATION

PRESENTED BY

the Wanderling





AND THE GRACEFUL SERVICES OF:

LEIGH BRASINGTON









Again, all of these Jhanas are naturally occurring states of mind. It is simply necessary to set up the proper conditions for the Jhana to arise, then do nothing and the mind will find its own way into the heart of the Jhana. Each of these Jhanas requires more concentration to enter than its predecessor. Each of these Jhanas results in a more concentrated mind than its predecessor. This concentration is the main reason for the importance of the Jhanas. With a superbly concentrated mind, you can see much more deeply into the nature of things as they are. Because the ego has to become very quiet to "do" the Jhanas, after "doing" them, you see things from a much less egocentric perspective. This is why Jhana practice is sometimes referred to as "sharpening Manjushri's sword"; once the sword is sharp, once the mind is concentrated, it is much easier to cut through the bonds of ignorance (Manjushri is the Tibetan Bodhisattva of Wisdom. He is usually pictured with a sword in his right hand which is used to cut thru the bonds of ignorance).

From the above discussion, we can more fully understand the Buddha's teaching of Sila, Prajna Samadhi, -- morality, wisdom, concentration. You clean up your act so that when you sit down to meditate, you can fully concentrate. You use the Jhanas to concentrate your mind as strongly as you are able. You then begin wielding Manjushri's sword by doing an insight practice that enables you to gain wisdom by seeing things as they really are rather than by seeing things from your usual egocentric perspective.





CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING THE PRACTICE OF THE JHANAS

Since the time of the Buddha, attitudes towards the Jhanas have varied greatly. There is strong evidence in the Suttas that quite early on there were at least two schools of thought. One approach emphasized insight practice almost exclusively, feeling that since insight gives rise to the wisdom necessary for enlightenment, this was what was more important. An excellent example of a sutra reflecting this approach is the Sammaditthi Sutra (Majjhima Nikaya #9). Here Sariputta gives a beautiful discourse on Right View. He discussed 16 important topics and ends each topic by saying "When a noble disciple has thus understood [the topic], he uproots the underlying tendency to greed, hatred, the 'I am' conceit and ignorance, and arousing true knowledge he here and now makes an end of suffering." Here enlightenment is achieved solely through insights; the Jhanas are not even mentioned.

Another school of thought gave considerable importance to the Jhanas. Those using this approach practiced the Jhanas so deeply that they developed what is called in Sanskrit Siddhi , that is, supernatural powers. These Siddhis, such as the divine ear (telepathy), being in two places at once, (bi-location), remembering past lives, etc., may be seen as phenomena in which the person is tapping into the "collective unconscious." This approach to Enlightenment can be found in the Kevatta Sutra . The Buddha first teaches morality and then the Jhanas. From the concentration resulting from the Jhanas, "one applies and directs the mind" to the attainment of these Siddhis. Enlightenment is attained in exactly the same way as the divine ear; there is no discussion of insights other than "knowing and seeing". This "formula" appears in each of these eleven suttas in almost exactly the same way -- something to be expected in an oral tradition -- but which means that we cannot be sure of what was originally in the sutra before the formula was inserted. Insight is barely mentioned in this method. Here Enlightenment is achieved through developing paranormal powers. We can assume that Enlightenment arises in one who has developed sufficent intimate contact with the collective unconscious that one can no longer concieve of himself as a separate entity.

The Culasaropama Sutra (Majjhima Nikaya #30) in addition to being an excellent teaching on the dangers of spiritual materialism, also refers to the Jhanas. However, it shows signs that suggest the text has been altered. Its beautiful mathematical harmony of the sutra suddenly breaks down in section 12 with a discussion of the Jhanas. The Jhanas are a concentration practice and concentration has already been stated in section 10 to be a lesser state than knowledge and vision. But when the Jhanas are introduced in section 12, they are said to be "higher and more sublime than knowledge and vision." The inclusion of the Jhanas here actually makes the sutta self-contradictory. It also contradicts other pro-Jhana sutras. The formulation of the eight Jhanas is the standard "short" one, (similiar to what is found in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta) but with the addition of a last sentence in each of the paragraphs: "This [too] is a state higher and more sublime than knowledge and vision." This sentence directly contradicts the last sentence of section 84 of the Samannaphala Sutta (Digha Nikaya #2). In the previous paragraph of the Samannaphala Sutta, the recluse directs the concentrated, pure, bright mind resulting from the fourth Jhana towards knowledge and vision. The understanding gained "is a visible fruit of recluseship more excellent and sublime than the previous ones". Many other suttas show signs of this type of tampering and we are left today with the task of puzzling out the original teaching.





AND NOW THIS:



The effects of this multi-millennium old debate still affect us today, not only in not knowing what the original suttas looked like, but also in understanding the role of the Jhanas.



The Jhanas are sometimes considered a dangerous practice because they are not an Insight Practice . The primary factor of the first Jhana is Piti and Piti is mentioned as a corruption of insight in the commentaries (see, for example, the Visuddhimagga). This has been taken to mean that Piti is bad, when all that is meant is that Piti should not be mistaken for a non-mundane state . Theravadan Buddhism in the West has primarily come down from the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition in Burma and this tradition is a "dry insight" (non-Jhanic) tradition. Thus the Jhanas are seldom mentioned, let alone taught, in Western Theravadan Buddhist teaching.

The Jhanas are also difficult to teach. Not everyone has a temperament suited to concentration practice. Even for those who find concentration easy, the Jhanas require a long silent retreat setting for learning. Far from being "secluded from unwholesome states of mind," people who wish to learn the Jhanas are immediately thrust INTO the state of desiring something. Finally, as mentioned above, the Jhanas do not lend themselves to "book learning"; you really need one-on-one, immediate feedback from a teacher in order to aim your mind in the correct direction. The Jhanas are natural states on mind, but the lives we lead here at the close of the 20th century are so filled that it is difficult to find the quiet, natural mind. See Doing Hard Time In A Zen Monastery .

The Jhanas are states of concentration. How to do them was common knowledge at the time of the Buddha. He practiced them, and it is clear from the suttas that they comprise right concentration. We are left with the task of fitting the Jhanas into our present spiritual practises. Perhaps between the extremes of ignoring them completely and practising them to excess, lies the middle way of using them as a tool to sharpen the mind for Insight Practise. Remember, as stated previously and presented above:







Before he became the Buddha, at the beginning of his spiritual quest, Siddhattha Gotma studied with two teachers. The first teacher, Alara Kalama, taught him the First Seven Jhanas ; the other teacher, Uddaka Ramaputta, taught him the Eighth Jhana . Both teachers told him they had taught him all there was to learn. But Siddhattha still didn't know why there was suffering, so he left each of these teachers and wound up doing six years of austerity practises. These too did not provide the answer to his question and he abandoned these for what has come to be known as the Middle Way. The sutras indicate that on the night of his Enlightenment, he sat down under the Bohdi Tree and began his meditation by practising the Jhanas (for example, see the Mahasaccaka Sutta - Majjhima Nikaya #36). When his mind was "concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady and attained to imperturbability" he direct it to the "true knowledges" that gave rise to his incredible breakthrough in consciousness known in the sutras as Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, beyond the beyond of the Eighth Jhana.

So we see that the Jhanas are not only at the heart of his teaching, but also were at the heart of his own practice.



EVEN SO, ALL EIGHT JHANAS WERE STILL NOT ENOUGH. THE BUDDHA'S BREAKTHROUGH TRANSPIRED ONLY AFTER HE SURPASSED THE EIGHTH AND FINAL JHANA! HIS AWAKENING DID NOT OCCUR IN THE EIGHTH JHANA BUT BEYOND IT. IT IS IN THAT REALM OF BEYOND BEYOND THE BEYOND WHEREIN THE JEWEL OF THE ANCIENTS CAN BE REALIZED BY ALL.







CONCLUSION



"Buddhism teaches that after a practitioner achieves a certain degree of realization, spiritual power develops. A person at the level of an Arhat is said to possess six supernatural powers. Furthermore, it is acknowledged as well that supernatural powers are not attainable exclusively JUST by Buddhists and Buddhists only. It is possible for anyone who has deep religious and spiritual cultivation to develop some kind of 'super-normal powers.'" NAGARJUNA: The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom (Dharmamitra Translation)







Anyone who finds themselves pursuing a casual to serious interest in Buddhism and Zen, especially so those seeking insights into spiritual Enlightenment a la Buddha and any relationship that exists thereof, it isn't long before they come face-to-face with some of the more esoteric aspects found in both religions, such as, for example, the super-normal perceptual states known as Siddhis, the mysterious hermitage said to exist somewhere beyond time in a remote area of the Himalayas known under a variety of names such as Gyanganj, Shambhala or Shangri-La, or the ability to fly.

Even though Buddhism and Zen are found to be deeply seeped in all three concepts, those who encounter one or the other individually or all, especially seekers on the path with a strong western background, although they may like the idea, they are usually uncomfortable with a formal acceptance of any possibility of reality for any or all, and quickly relegate or disregard such ideas into areas of forced silence. See:





THE CODE MAKER, THE ZEN MAKER

OF SHANGRI-LA, SHAMBHALA, GYANGANJ, BUDDHISM AND ZEN





The revered Indian spiritual teacher Sri H. W. L. Poonja (1910-1997), also known as Poonjaji or Papaji, a master in his own right, is considered in religious circles as the foremost disciple, devotee, follower or advocate of the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Anybody who holds themselves up to be anybody in the present day Advaita Vedanta come Enlightenment movement a la Ramana, but too young or not born in time to have studied under Ramana, had to have at one time bellied up to Poonja in some fashion or the other in order to flaunt their credibility.

Otherwise, when it comes to India-based spiritual types such as sages, gurus, saints and holy men, as seen from the west, by virtue of some rather well known and prominent Americans along with a press that is inexorably wrapped up in such people, Neem Karoli Baba (d. 1973) rises to the top. He is perhaps, at least in recent years, the most well known and revered. How many adherents or followers he has actually amassed is not generally known, it is known however, that people such as Steve Jobs of Apple fame and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, even after the holy man's demise, sought solace or spiritual insight of some type simply by visiting the guru's temple or onetime place of abode.

Such pilgrimages by the high and mighty, as well as the masses seeking out the sadhu's grace and light, although long known in parts of India, began for westerners as not much than a mere trickle sometime just around the end of the 1960's, growing exponentially thereafter. In 1963, Dr. Richard Alpert, a university professor who had been formally dismissed from his academic position at Harvard for a number of so-called violations, including the mishandling of research LSD and civilian-based psychedelics, traveled to India and Nepal. During his travels he met an itinerant American traveler in his early 20's from Laguna Beach, California named Kermit Michael Riggs , traveling in India and surrounding environs under the spiritual nom de plume Bhagavan Das . Das, a follower of the venerated Indian saint and holy man Neem Karoli Baba had, after several years in India become fully and deeply ingrained into the country's spiritual culture. After crossing paths with and becoming cognizant of Alpert's spiritual quest --- or just hoping to get rid of him depending on who you listen to --- Das took Alpert to Neem Karoli Baba. Following closely Alpert's dedication toward a deep spiritual struggle, it is reported that Neem Karoli Baba gave Alpert the name Ram Dass, meaning "servant of God."

Regardless of latter day followers and any credibility so said gurus may or may not radiate, most agree Poonja himself was the real thing. The quote below is from his biography. He was not some ancient saint who somebody said somebody said they saw something, but a modern day personage that reported the following:





"In the last forty years or so I have met thousands of sadhus, swamis, gurus, etc. I have been to Kumbha Melas which millions of pilgrims attended; I have been to many of the big ashrams in India; I have toured the Himalayas, meeting many reclusive her­mits there; I have met yogis with great siddhis, men who could actually fly."





The Buddha is quite clear on the level of Attainment and criteria that MUST be met in order successfully set into motion such actions. A person cannot simply sit down meditating for a few minutes and then find themselves with the ability to fly off, for example, to someplace like the mysterious hermitage said to exist somewhere beyond time in a remote area of the Himalayas known under a variety of names such as Gyanganj, Shambhala or Shangri-La, re the following:





"The Buddha said 'If a monk should frame a wish as follows: 'Let me travel through the air like a winged bird,' then must he be perfect in the precepts (Sila), bring his thoughts to a state of quiescence (Samadhi), practice diligently the trances (Jhana), attain to insight (Prajna) and be frequenter to lonely places.'" SIDDHIS: Supernormal Perceptual States





Simply put, for the practitioner to have the ability to fly he must be perfect in the precepts of Sila, Samadhi, Jhana, and Praja. If the practioner is not perfect in any one or all, no flying.

This page is on Janas. When you are perfect in it's precepts move on to:





MEDITATION APPS









The past several years has seen a proliferation of smartphone meditation apps come on the market, all designed in such a way to ease, assist, familiarize, and put into use meditation techniques for almost anybody interested in learning and implementing the various ins-and-outs of meditation, at least as the manufacturers of the apps view meditation.

Beyond the manufacturers advertisement and promotions, for every page that shows up on the internet or elsewhere in support of using the apps, there is an equal number of pages knocking their use. What the knocking their use people are selling varies, but the in support folk seem to be in line with the app builders and promoters because if nothing else, the apps sell --- and sell big time, especially so the two top brands, Headspace and Calm.

People use all kinds of things to enhance or increase their ability to accomplish things. They wear glasses to improve the clarity of their physical vision. Some use dental implants and dentures to chew, eat, or look better. The same for the use of prosthetics, crutches, canes, or wheelchairs. They help people get things done and walk or move about who otherwise might not be able to. But, if glasses to read or see aren't needed, or implants or dentures, or canes, crutches, or wheelchairs, why use them? Initially, with meditation, other than a coming to know what meditation is and what it can do if you do it, nothing much than the desire to do so and then doing it is required Painting legs on a snake doesn't make it walk any better. Electronically painting photon-pushing meditation legs to swath your synapses with trompe l'oeil may be for some, better than nothing. However, and this is one of the biggest however's ever, it is that better than nothing that makes it not, not nothing, the goal of meditation.





THE ZEN-MAN FLIES



Let Me Travel Through the Air Like a Winged Bird

(please click image)





SEE

BUDDHIST MEDITATION: Stages of Mindfulness and Absorption

PATH OF MINDFULNESS LEADING TO INSIGHT









Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where

we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience

and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.



















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