Today I listened to MN 36 again:starter wrote:Anapanasati taught in MN 118 is for practicing four mindfulness (the 7th path factor), not really for entering deep jhana, as I understand. From the suttas I've gotten a sense that the Buddha probably used simple breath meditation (watching in & out breathing, like the first tetrad of MN 118) for entering jhana. The jhana experience he obtained when he was a child certainly had nothing to do with more than watching the breath, I suppose.
... "I recall that when my father the Sakyan was occupied, while I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by initial application and sustained application (of mind to breathing), with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion." ...
My understanding is that for samadhi/jhana a meditation object must be attended to steadily, as in the case quoted above. There might be confusion between the methods of using the breath as the meditation object for samadhi (also named Anapanasati?) and the 16 steps of Anapanasati for developing 4 mindfulness as described in MN 118 (I believe one needs to attain at least the 1st jhana in order to practice Anapanasati).
I'm wondering if it's because steadily attending to breath (or another meditation object) for samadhi meditation was such a common sense everyone knew at the Buddha's time, that he didn't think it's necessary to teach it then. It's kind of funny that beginners nowadays would no longer know how to do samadhi meditation and would use the complicated 16 steps for reaching jhana.
Metta to all!