OP wrote
Anapanasati is similar in practice to pranayama as I understand it, I.e. working with breath energies to reach a state of calm
there is a world of difference between the two. Correct Anapanasati has Buddha written all over the breath (I mean freedom from suffering), and Pranayama is a 5000 yr old? breath manipulation practice. I doubt whether it leads to end of suffering. You wrote
Now the context may not be quite the same I realize, but It seems likely given the stock description of jhana found in MN119 and elsewhere that breath meditation is more working with the breath energy than anything.
As you speculated correctly, the context is quite different. You continued
To quote MN119:
"Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman's apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again & again with water, so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within & without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk permeates... this very body with the rapture & pleasure born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal."
The bath simile is used for the first Buddhist Jhana in the canon. It is a metaphor used to help with overriding thinking and exploration or investigation of that thought that impinged. It has its purpose.
But if you want to approach the meditation via breath, you can skip first jhana, or the bath simile, which works very well some times for many people.
There is another another simile in the canon called
Turner Simile.
When you understand that, you will see that breath can be used very subtly
- to rip apart underlying tendency.
The goal of buddhist meditation is just this, not the hinduistic mechanisms of achieving,
boundless space, infinite whatever, or things labelled as neither perception nor non-perception leading to nevasannavedaitanirodha (sp?), but many buddhists still chat about these a lot (since these have been leaked into the canon) i.e. influence of Vedic stuff on Buddhism.
In fact Ajhan Sona has an amazing video illustrating how breath works. And I have written about this on my jhana thread (I think). At least I've spent an entire comment on Sona's series on Jhana. It is too tiring for me to revisit it on this thread.
I know you asked me a question on my
jhana thread. The right answer would have been v. lengthy and without knowing your background, I would have failed.
You wrote
I know Bhikkhu Thanissaro holds this view, and this paradigm also seems to work well with more abstract objects like the brahmaviharas.
I agree with this. Thanissaro is a wise monk.
Keep on exploring... these things take time. esp since hinduism has borrowed heavily from Buddha, and later writings of the canon have been influenced by Hinduism.
With love
PS
This comment is addressed to the pitithefool only. I have no time to engage in heavy disputes such as Thanissaro is wrong, that Ajahn Lee borrowed from Hinduism. This kind of dispute eats up time, and leads to dead ends. We have to be forever grateful to these giants of Dhamma. Is there anyone who does not make a mistake other than the almighty?
Pity this fool too. I like that name, the humility expressed therein.