I think you are mistaking interpretation of jhana to be the jhana. You have to know sutta jhana before you can recognize that they speak of Sutta jhana. Its similar to what idioms are.frank k wrote: ↑Sat Nov 13, 2021 11:08 am I did address the issue. The suttas make it clear, about 50 out of 152 MN suttas for example, make it exceedingly clear that 4 jhanas is necessary for liberation. It doesn't say access concentration is sufficient for liberation, and there is no access concentration in the EBT. That the access concentration of Vism. is roughly equivalent to EBT sutta jhana, doesn't help matters. People are going to remember that the suttas make it crystal clear that JHANA is necessary, so if they're under the wrong view that VRJ (vism. redefinition of jhana) is the same as sutta JHANA, then that's what they're going to shoot for.
And not to mention that if they think VRJ is real jhana, then the suttas have been destroyed for them (on the jhana instructions), because now they can't read sutta passages on jhana and make any sense out of them, since their using a corrupted dictionary and have some wrong understandings that they're trying to read into the suttas. That's a horrendous crime, done intentionally.
Now if you argue that the access can't substitute jhana then you are claiming there is no sense object during jhana. Because access concentration is jhana-limited to the sensual realm.
access is proximity cause for entering jhana,
looks like access is part of the purification of the wayvisuddhimagga 141 wrote:Absorption concentration is the unification that
follows immediately upon the preliminary-work (IV.74) because of the words, “The
first-jhána preliminary-work is a condition, as proximity condition, for the first
jhána” (Paþþh II 350 (Se). So it is of two kinds as access and absorption.
access purifies mind from obstructionspati 13 wrote:In these four instances mind arrived at unity (ekatta):
(11) enters into purification of the way,
(12) is intensified in equanimity,
(13) is satisfied by knowledge.
What is the beginning, the middle, and the end, of the first jhana?
Of the first jhana purification of the way is the beginning, intensification of
equanimity is the middle, and encouragement is the end.
characteristic is also the function for attaining said characteristic,pati wrote:The beginning has three characteristics:
(i) mind is purified of obstructions to that [jhana];
(ii) because it is purified, mind makes way for the central sign of calm abiding;
(iii) because it has made way, mind enters into that state.
vitakka what arises during access denotes jhana beginning. Vitakka absorbs states what are associated with the appana citta.visuddhimagga 140 wrote:Concentration has non-distraction as its characteristic.3 Its function is to eliminate
distraction. It is manifested as non-wavering. Because of the words, “Being blissful,
his mind becomes concentrated” (D I 73), its proximate cause is bliss.
Jhana is supramundane, it is the fruit of the noble ones establishing cessation. At the moment of cessation the absorption is on the path fruit.visuddhimagga and point 4 is footnote on it wrote:(1) First of all it is of one kind with the characteristic of non-distraction. (2)
Then it is of two kinds as access and absorption;4
4. “Applied thought that occurs as though absorbing (appento) associated states in
the object is absorption (appaná). Accordingly it is described as ‘absorption, absorbing
(appaná vyappaná)’ (M III 73). Now since that is the most important, the usage of the
Commentaries is to call all exalted and unsurpassed jhána states ‘absorption’ [as well
as the applied thought itself], and likewise to apply the term of common usage ‘access’
to the limited [i.e. sense-sphere] jhána that heralds the arising of the former, just as the
term ‘village access,’ etc. is applied to the neighbourhood of a village” (Vism-mhþ 91).