Who experienced Jhana, and how?

The cultivation of calm or tranquility and the development of concentration
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Zom
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by Zom »

Actually in first jhana it is impossible to experience any bodily feeling.
According to SN 48.40 only painful bodily. And pleasant bodily feeling ends only in 3rd jhana.
daverupa
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by daverupa »

Zom wrote:
Actually in first jhana it is impossible to experience any bodily feeling.
According to SN 48.40 only painful bodily. And pleasant bodily feeling ends only in 3rd jhana.
This really depends on how we render 'kaya', and whether or not we're overlooking a Pali idiom.

http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... =60#p74489
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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waterchan
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by waterchan »

David N. Snyder wrote: Several reputable and famous monastics have claimed jhana abilities including Bhante Gunaratana, Ajahn Brahm, and Ayya Khema.
I've never heard or read Ajahn Brahm outright claiming that he has attained jhana. Obviously he has said and written very comprehensively on what each jhana is like, how they feel, how to proceed from one to the other and so on, but still, it's technically not a claim. I mean, I personally have no doubt that he has attained it, but he hasn't outright claimed it, as far as I know.

This might sound like a contrived justification, but I think the difference here is significant. If his teachings on jhana are to be interpreted as a declaration of attainment, then allegedly Ajahn Brahm has also claimed that he is a stream enterer, once returner, non returner and arahant, since he has spoken and written comprehensively on those attainments as well.
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by DNS »

In his writings and in his talks he writes about jhanas and also how it feels, how one proceeds, how the pleasure is so great, better than sex, etc. In his writings and in his talks it is very apparent that he is talking in first person experience. I don't have a problem with that, just noting what he taught.
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by Zom »

This really depends on how we render 'kaya', and whether or not we're overlooking a Pali idiom.
No, because in this sutta we have 4 types of feelings: 2 bodily and 2 mental. So this is absolutely clear that it says about bodily feeling that ceases in 3rd jhana. While 2 mental feelings cease in 2nd and 4th jhanas respectively. Check also SN 40.36.
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by waterchan »

Zom wrote:In the 1st jhana there is no painful bodily feeling (SN 48.40). So if someone thinks he attains 1st jhana, he should check if this is the case. While in jhana it is impossible for him to experience even slight bodily discomfort, not talking about gross one, like aching knee, itch, etc.. :reading:
It seems that this resistance to bodily affliction is greatly amplified in higher jhanas. In one of the suttas, a monk in jhana was taken to be dead and carried away to be cremated. But the fire just wouldn't burn him or even his robes.

I wonder what would happen if he came out of jhana while being cremated!
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by santa100 »

That was Ven. Sanjiva in MN 50, who entered the Cessation of perception and feeling meditation. More info. from another thread here
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by waterchan »

Thanks for the sutta references, santa100. :smile:

On jhana, as David said, obviously some kind of indication is necessary to get the practice around and motivate people to meditate. And I sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that more and more people can experience the blissful serenity of jhana which in my opinion is an extremely important step on the path. And if you have experienced jhana, fantastic, more power to you!

But the Internet is the wrong place for jhana claims. And the main reason is there are already more than enough self-proclaimed http jhana attainers, http stream winners, and http arahants, the vast majority of which we cannot verify due to the anonymity provided by the internet. A claim that cannot be verified adds little to the discussion.

By the way, I can enter the fourth jhana at will and I am also a millionaire.

Attainments are best divulged to a trustworthy monastic or lay teacher who is in a suitable position to assess your claims.
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by tiltbillings »

waterchan wrote:
Attainments are best divulged to a trustworthy monastic or lay teacher who is in a suitable position to assess your claims.
Absolutely.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by fivebells »

waterchan wrote:I sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that more and more people can experience the blissful serenity of jhana which in my opinion is an extremely important step on the path. And if you have experienced jhana, fantastic, more power to you!

But the Internet is the wrong place for jhana claims. And the main reason is there are already more than enough self-proclaimed http jhana attainers, http stream winners, and http arahants, the vast majority of which we cannot verify due to the anonymity provided by the internet. A claim that cannot be verified adds little to the discussion.

By the way, I can enter the fourth jhana at will and I am also a millionaire.
When someone is asking, as J0rrit did, how many people experience jhana and who in his audience has developed jhana, the optimistic assumption is that they're assessing whether it's a sensible goal for themselves, in which case it may be useful for them to hear from people who think they've done so. How does the impossibility of verifying such claims over the internet (or otherwise, for that matter) enter into it?
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by waterchan »

fivebells wrote: When someone is asking, as J0rrit did, how many people experience jhana and who in his audience has developed jhana, the optimistic assumption is that they're assessing whether it's a sensible goal for themselves, in which case it may be useful for them to hear from people who think they've done so. How does the impossibility of verifying such claims over the internet (or otherwise, for that matter) enter into it?
My response to J0rrit would be the same — that jhana attainment, or any kind of spiritual attainment, is not a very useful thing to survey on an Internet forum. It is pretty much like asking "Who here is a millionaire, and how did you become one?"

As James The Giant has alluded to, such claims coming from real-life acquaintances can be dubious enough.
quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by fivebells »

And that's fine, but that's not what I was responding to.
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by Sylvester »

daverupa wrote:
Zom wrote:
Actually in first jhana it is impossible to experience any bodily feeling.
According to SN 48.40 only painful bodily. And pleasant bodily feeling ends only in 3rd jhana.
This really depends on how we render 'kaya', and whether or not we're overlooking a Pali idiom.

http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... =60#p74489

Gasp! Do I detect a heretical flirting with the Middle-Indo Aryan conception of kāya?

Personally, I feel that Dmytro and I covered more ground in this thread -

http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=13998

See also the discussion on MN 36, where the non-development of the "body" is taken up; sounds suspiciously like the Indic vernacular/idiom for "himself". I wonder why it is so easy to miss that elephant in the room that is MN 148's allowance for mind-contact to give rise to kāyika feelings, without being necessarily pierced by the anusayas that generate the cetasika responses.

Perhaps I should first convert to Upanisadic Hinduism. There are just too many linguistic echoes from the BAU and CU in the suttas, that it might be easier for me to make the breakthrough to the Dhamma if I clung to MN 1's dhammas like an Upanisadic sage. :stirthepot:
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by SarathW »

Please consider the following as well:

"When a monk is attaining the cessation of perception and feeling, friend Visakha, verbal fabrications cease first, then bodily fabrications, then mental fabrications."

http://buddhasutra.com/files/cula_vedalla_sutta.htm
====================
As SN 36:11 points out,
verbal fabrication is present in the first jh›na; bodily fabrication, in the first three
jh›nas; and mental fabrication, in all four jh›nas and the first four formless
dimensions based on the fourth jh›na.

Page 37
http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writ ... 120810.pdf
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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Re: Who experienced Jhana, and how?

Post by Modus.Ponens »

fivebells wrote:
waterchan wrote:I sincerely wish from the bottom of my heart that more and more people can experience the blissful serenity of jhana which in my opinion is an extremely important step on the path. And if you have experienced jhana, fantastic, more power to you!

But the Internet is the wrong place for jhana claims. And the main reason is there are already more than enough self-proclaimed http jhana attainers, http stream winners, and http arahants, the vast majority of which we cannot verify due to the anonymity provided by the internet. A claim that cannot be verified adds little to the discussion.

By the way, I can enter the fourth jhana at will and I am also a millionaire.
When someone is asking, as J0rrit did, how many people experience jhana and who in his audience has developed jhana, the optimistic assumption is that they're assessing whether it's a sensible goal for themselves, in which case it may be useful for them to hear from people who think they've done so. How does the impossibility of verifying such claims over the internet (or otherwise, for that matter) enter into it?
:goodpost:

We are adults here. It is reasonably assumed that, if someone says that he attained jhana, the rest of the people don't believe it like it's the bible.

I don't see the reason for such a strong taboo among buddhists. Especially when the topic is asking precisely about that.
'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' - Jhana Sutta
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