andyebarnes67 wrote:I have always felt there to be a close correlation between the four levels - stream winner, once returner, non-return and Arahant to the Jhanas.
Does anyone more knowledgeable have any views/references for or against this view?
(Moderators, you might think this worth re posting as a new thread somewhere. If so, please do and just let me know here. Thanks.)
Hello:
There isn´t a close correlation between the four levels of enlightment and the jhanas.
AN 11.17 - A person can attain Arahanship just having the first jhana
"There is the case, householder, where a monk, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He reflects on this and discerns, 'This first jhana is fabricated & intended. Now whatever is fabricated & intended is inconstant & subject to cessation.' Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the mental fermentations. Or, if not, then — through this very Dhamma-passion, this Dhamma-delight, and from the total wasting away of the first five Fetters[1] — he is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world.
SN 12.70 - A group of Arahants unable to experience arupa jhanas
"Then, having known thus, having seen thus, do you dwell touching with your body the peaceful emancipations, the formless states beyond form [the formless jhanas]?"
"No, friend."
"So just now, friends, didn't you make that declaration without having attained any of these Dhammas?"
"We're released through discernment, friend Susima."
The Life of Sariputta - Sariputta attaining stream-entry without jhana
"Of all those things that from a cause arise,
Tathagata the cause thereof has told;
And how they cease to be, that too he tells,
This is the doctrine of the Great Recluse."[2]
Upon hearing the first two lines, Upatissa became established in the Path of stream-entry, and to the ending of the last two lines he already listened as a stream-winner.
In the Susima Sutta, Susima asks the Buddha how can a person can become an arahant and still not experience every jhana there is. The Buddha answered: "First, Susima, there is the knowledge of the regularity of the Dhamma [dependent co-arising], after which there is the knowledge of Unbinding."
So basically its saying u just need to see and understand dependent co-arising to become enlightened.
Regards.