Hi Ben,
I cannot answer on behalf of the OP, but I do feel the need to respectfully respond to a few things you said
If you are focusing your meditative practice on samatha-bhavana - you need to think about why.
We
could categorize the jhanas as 'samatha bhavana', but doing so might inadvertantly lead some persons to misconstrue jhana as
just a means to calm & pacify the mind, when it is much more than
just that. Plus it's 'limb number eight' of the Noble Path - why not practice it, if the Buddha has
instructed us to?
In other words, maybe he is attempting to practice jhana because, simply, it is part of the Buddha's Path to enlightenment - just that.
Samatha-bhavana when developed to states of absorption can be extremely seductive and many people do get stuck there, believing that this or that jhanic experience is nibbana. Jhana can either be a tool for the rapid development of insight or a guilded prison.
I cannot see how jhana, if practiced in accordance with the Buddha's instructions, could be anything other than conducive to liberation. Where you would be correct is in cases of what Bhante Gunaratana calls '
wrong concentration' (as opposed to 'right concentration'). But then again, wrong concentration
isn't jhana in any case, because the Buddha defines right concentration
as the four jhanas.
On another note, I just noticed how patient you were in that answer (to the OP) - and in general on DW. I know this is a tad off-topic, but I wished to add it because in voicing some slight differences in perspective, I want it to be understood that they are voiced in goodwill alone.
with metta,
.