AN 4.123 "Jhana Sutta: Mental Absorption" talks about this. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.htmlSatti1 wrote: But can jhanas not also result in craving and therefore cause suffering?
And IMO of course an "educated disciple of the noble ones" uses mental absorption for the purpose of attaining insight for liberation. An "ordinary person" uses it to "bliss out" and that's it."There is the case where an individual, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He savors that, longs for that, finds satisfaction through that. Staying there — fixed on that, dwelling there often, not falling away from that — then when he dies he reappears in conjunction with the devas of Brahma's retinue. The devas of Brahma's retinue, monks, have a life-span of an eon. A run-of-the-mill person having stayed there, having used up all the life-span of those devas, goes to hell, to the animal womb, to the state of the hungry shades. But a disciple of the Blessed One, having stayed there, having used up all the life-span of those devas, is unbound right in that state of being. This, monks, is the difference, this the distinction, this the distinguishing factor, between an educated disciple of the noble ones and an uneducated run-of-the-mill person, when there is a destination, a reappearing.
Jhanas pleasure is considered superior to sensual pleasures because it leads to a higher deva realms whereas worldly pleasure leads to a worldly (or perhaps lower?) realm.
Or, you could say that Jhana pleasure has the potential to lead to "higher state" or "closer to enlightenment" or whatever you want to call it. Whereas sensual pleasure has no potential for that at all.
But as you can see from the above, getting "closer to enlightenment" is not necessarily the case, if the person is an "uneducated run-of-the-mill person".