When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
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Tennok
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by Tennok »

nirodh27 wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 4:45 pm So that kind of Jhana doesn't incline you towards dispassion very well because it misses the Buddha's intent to link the Jhana with the analysis of your thoughts by making that analysis the entrance point of the bliss and peace that is dependent from them. It is not bad, it has a goal, but you have also to fear it and ask yourself if it a worthy one (especially since the automatic removal of kammachanda is not there, you will always be at risk if you lose the conditions that are very demanding for deep absorption).
Hi, nirodh 27

But what if such jhana ( the one, which you assume lacks of former analysis) is a result if panna, sati and rennounciation? And the link is present?

As far as I understand your post, you are making a distinction between two kinds of jhanas, one coming from wisdom ( practice of Dhamma intended by the Buddha ) and resulting in furher wisdom. And the other one, too blisfull, coming from different efforts. A dead end.

It's not necessarily true. For example, in the "hard jhana " instructions I'm familar with, the very desire to experience jhana is a main obstacle. Such practice involves dealing with craving, clinging and becoming, 4 Noble Truths and DO. Those instructions also talk about hindrances and kilesas, which must be dealed with, prior to entering jhana. And as such sublimed state can't be kept forever and controled, it also teaches about 3 marks of existence. So I don't see it, as something separated from the Dhamma.

First monks dwelled in forrests and probably spent most of their time meditating. The didn't involve much in village activities, temple services, rituals and such. So the argument, that wisdom jhana is better, becouse one can be active while doing them, is somehow anachronistic. The monks had to become more active, when they became beaurocrats, irrigation experts, teachers and scholars, working for local communities and kings, and often abbandoning any meditation practices...I ve read that in mediveal Sri Lanka only those monks, who were considered as intelectually disabled or crazy, were allowed to meditate, couse nobody could use them for "serious work". It was a degeneration of a Dhamma, for such reasons meditation practices almost died out and had to be ressurected in XIX Century.

I can see the danger of attachment and lack of further investigation of Dukkha, if one gets stuck ina bliss. But piti and sukha, the divine bliss, is present in the " wisdom jhana", anyway. And so is the danger of attachment to pleasure. It's just a sign of lack of understanding of Dhamma...like monks addicted to tobbaco or betel.

And the last question for you...what is the goal of Dhamma? Is it Sati and Panna, or the end of Dukkha?

metta & peace
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by BrokenBones »

Tennok wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:45 am
nirodh27 wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 4:45 pm
Jhana born of renunciation vs jhana born of ignorance.

One type of jhana is found by abandoning the hindrances by seeing the disadvantages of sensual pleasures and the bliss of renunciation.

One type of jhana is found by ignoring the hindrances and focusing on the bliss as a goal... the shutting down of the senses is assuredly a temporary escape from sensual desire... but you haven't lessened that desire... just had a bit of a holiday from it.

The whole point of jhanas are to lessen sense desire... not turn off the senses.

It's like turning the telly off for an hour... the pictures are still there when you turn it back on and you haven't lessened the rubbish that's being beamed into your living room.
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Tennok
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by Tennok »

BrokenBones post_id=651627 time=1635244327 user_id=15222]

One type of jhana is found by ignoring the hindrances and focusing on the bliss as a goal...
You are not being honest, BrokenBones. You don't refer to anything I wrote and intsead choose to kick some imaginary strawman.
I think you should provide quotations for your claims. Show me some "jhana hard" practitioners or teachers, which recommend ignoring of hindrances and insight, and advise forceful concentration.

I can provide quotations for my claims. About forceful concentrantion:
You cannot reach this stage through force, through

holding or gripping. You can only attain this degree

of stillness by letting go of everything in the entire

universe, except for this momentary experience of

breath happening silently now. ‘You’ don’t reach this

stage; the mind reaches this stage. The mind does

the work itself. The mind recognizes this stage to be

a very peaceful and pleasant abiding, just being

alone with the breath. This is where the ‘doer’, the

major part of one’s ego, starts to disappear.
.
It's from A. Brahm's Basic Method of meditation. And one more quotation from a Dhamma talk about hindrances:
The purpose of samādhi is to overcome
the five hindrances, and to provide the data that insight can work on
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by BrokenBones »

Tennok wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:16 pm
BrokenBones post_id=651627 time=1635244327 user_id=15222]

One type of jhana is found by ignoring the hindrances and focusing on the bliss as a goal...
You are not being honest, BrokenBones. You don't refer to anything I wrote and intsead choose to kick some imaginary strawman.
I think you should provide quotations for your claims. Show me some "jhana hard" practitioners or teachers, which recommend ignoring of hindrances and insight, and advise forceful concentration.

I can provide quotations for my claims. About forceful concentrantion:
You cannot reach this stage through force, through

holding or gripping. You can only attain this degree

of stillness by letting go of everything in the entire

universe, except for this momentary experience of

breath happening silently now.
‘You’ don’t reach this

stage; the mind reaches this stage. The mind does

the work itself. The mind recognizes this stage to be

a very peaceful and pleasant abiding, just being

alone with the breath. This is where the ‘doer’, the

major part of one’s ego, starts to disappear
.
.
It's from A. Brahm's Basic Method of meditation. And one more quotation from a Dhamma talk about hindrances:
The purpose of samādhi is to overcome
the five hindrances, and to provide the data that insight can work on
Some people might take exception to being called a liar... I'll excuse you and put it down to ignorance.

As I've said, words are cheap. It's alright flowering things up with expressions of 'letting go' and proclamations of not using force.

The piece on the 'momentary breath' that I've highlighted shows where the problem lies... it's zoning in on a single experience which has as much to do with sutta jhana & 8NP as the Great Brahma in the sky does. Are you trying to merge the 'doer' with the Great 'Ego'?

As for the last bit, seems back to front to me... the hindrances are reduced by insight so that samadhi may occur and focus on the even bigger stuff.

I don't need to be 'honest' when your own 'honesty' means you hoist with your own petard.
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Tennok
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by Tennok »

So, no quotations to back your opinions. I could expect that.

As about this argumentation:
The piece on the 'momentary breath' that I've highlighted shows where the problem lies... it's zoning in on a single experience which has as much to do with sutta jhana & 8NP as the Great Brahma in the sky does. Are you trying to merge the 'doer' with the Great 'Ego'?
Have you heard about term ekaggata? A hint - it's one of jhana factors. So before discussing sutta jhanas you should read about them a bit, perhaps.

Neither Great Brahma nor the Great Ego was not mentioned in the quotation I provided. You are boxing with the strawman, again.
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by mikenz66 »

That's certainly what it looks like to me (a straw person). I'm not fanboy of Ajahn Brahm, but his approach certainly involves a lot of letting go, not obsessing about, or clinging to, anything. I would also point out that what has been quoted above is, according to AB, a few steps away from jhāna.
See: https://bswa.org/bswp/wp-content/upload ... tation.pdf

:heart:
Mike
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by BrokenBones »

Tennok wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:14 am So, no quotations to back your opinions. I could expect that.

As about this argumentation:
The piece on the 'momentary breath' that I've highlighted shows where the problem lies... it's zoning in on a single experience which has as much to do with sutta jhana & 8NP as the Great Brahma in the sky does. Are you trying to merge the 'doer' with the Great 'Ego'?
Have you heard about term ekaggata? A hint - it's one of jhana factors. So before discussing sutta jhanas you should read about them a bit, perhaps.

Neither Great Brahma nor the Great Ego was not mentioned in the quotation I provided. You are boxing with the strawman, again.
In your quote... who is the doer? Where is the ego disappearing to?

I suggest the ego is merging with the fairy (Brahma) light nimitta.

Ekaggata refers to a collected... a unified mind... not a fixation on one thing.

I've noticed that the straw man argument is frequently brought up by certain jhana adherents or their supporters... usually when the argument gets round to things not taught by the Buddha... e.g access concentration, absorbing into nimittas, fixing on one spot or light, loss of the senses etc.

It's a good job the Visuddhimagga came along for you all to have something to hang your hats on... I'll stick with the words of the Buddha and not a 5th Century handbook e.g...

And how does a mendicant practice in the way that is proper for an ascetic?
There are some mendicants who have given up covetousness, ill will, irritability, hostility, disdain, contempt, jealousy, stinginess, deviousness, deceit, bad desires, and wrong view. These stains, defects, and dregs of an ascetic are grounds for rebirth in places of loss, and are experienced in bad places. When they have given these up, they are practicing in the way that is proper for an ascetic, I say.
They see themselves purified from all these bad, unskillful qualities. Seeing this, joy springs up. Being joyful, rapture springs up. When the mind is full of rapture, the body becomes tranquil. When the body is tranquil, they feel bliss. And when blissful, the mind becomes immersed in samādhi.


https://suttacentral.net/mn40/en/sujato ... ript=latin

How these stains are given up are explained elsewhere in the suttas... again... no fixed concentration required... just wise consideration.

Note the use of Yonisomanasikara, vittaka & vicara... no bright light nimittas or turning off the senses... strawman indeed... piffle... I laugh at your strawman.
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nirodh27
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by nirodh27 »

Hi Tennok,
As far as I understand your post, you are making a distinction between two kinds of jhanas, one coming from wisdom ( practice of Dhamma intended by the Buddha ) and resulting in furher wisdom. And the other one, too blisfull, coming from different efforts. A dead end.
Not a dead end, because one could very well develop the path nonethless and I don't think that the method is alien to the Buddhadhamma, being it in some ways similar to the first or the third removal in MN20 in which you simply turn your attention away from the unwholesome. But is more risky and have the drawbacks I've tried to expose in my post.

My response was to the question of the topic, but if you want to talk about A.Bhahm in particular, I consider the best teacher of Deep Absorption and I've read all of his books while being convinced that he teached the only possible Jhana. The other teacher that I've read a lot about Jhana is Shaila Catherine. First parth of Shaila's book about Jhanas is all about letting go and renunciaton, probably two of the most inspiring chapters about it that I've ever read. So I'm well aware that (some) teachers of deep absorption teaches renunciation and I agree that renunciation is a key for absorption for those two teachears at least for sure.

The istructions (of course I'm simplyfing) are that one needs to relax deeply, try to let go of everything, try to let go of desire for the pleasure of Jhana which is the main obstacle (since after all, if you sit for Jhana in a retire, to experience jhana is the main desire of the mind at that time) and learn to experience and focus to the beautiful breath until concentration grows and you enter in access contration, after a while the sense of letting go is so strong that the doer that "breaths" disappears and sooner or later the nimitta comes and then you switch focus on that. Again, not 100% perfect, but ok.

Now make the experiment, for the sake of argument, to read MA102 (which I prefer since it is well-ordered and more detailed, this is my view, sorry) with the hypotesis that, just like everywhere else, just like in the preceding sutta, Vitakka and Vicara are Thoughts and analisys/examination of a Dhammic theme.

Done? How in the world can be considered the same teaching? There's no concentration on a point or an object, there's no access concentration, there's reasoning about the drawbacks, there's cultivation of the wholesome, there's the operation to divide the thoughts in two kinds, there's an u-turn that is given by the evaluation of the Dhamma, there's not even the breath involved at all.

In one system, we have a training in attention to a point so to suppress external stimuli and a training in letting go. But the good question is letting go of what?. To enter we let go of:

- Thoughts no matter if unwholesome or wholesome.
- Experience of the five senses.
- Craving/intention to experience the orgasmic/godlike bliss of Jhana since it is one of the stumbling blocks to experience the godlike bliss.
- Control and sense of the doer, since in my experience the experience of the doer completely disappeared after a while, it is like that the breath it is a thing on its own, but attention too seems a thing on its own.

But all the letting go is at the service of that orgasmic bliss which is clearly the main goal.

in the second system, you let go of:

- unwholesome thoughts and intentions about sensuality, sensual pleasures, aversions by reasoning about them and seeing, imagining the drawbacks in the long run.
- Control/strong intention about the intentions of the mind only when you are certain that the mind have made the u-turn for the wholesome.

while at the same time you retain and increase:

- wholesome thoughts, reflection and intentions about Dhammic themes like the fewerness of wishes, the problems of conceit, the drawbacks of sensual pleasures, seeing the world as a dart or an affliction, ecc..)

Here instead we have both letting go and retention, a lot of retention, so much retention that thoughts about Dhamma, renunciation, ecc start to became automatic since there's a welcomed u-turn about renunciation, a subversion of your own values about the world and so a true seclusion and pacification is happening. The cows (that are clearly the thoughts) are inside the limits of the wholesome after your hard work and now you are allowed to rest. At the same time the desire to experience bliss is not there at all, because the focus is not at all to experience pleasure, but the pleasure is the u-turn itself because when you discover that there's poison in your orange juice, the happiness is not to drink it and you don't have to produce it by a technique. When we will finally understand that the poison is delight, to non-delight in sensuality will be the happiness there.

So here the pleasure and the goal is not the orgasmic bliss, but it is precisely the happiness of the renunciation, the happiness of the calm that renunciation brings, the happiness of a meditator that starts to awaken to the four noble truths (that you can avoid the poison by simply avoid to drink it and that you are free to not drink it). Which is how the Buddha describes the pleasure of Jhana in MN66. That is why jhana gently inclines you towards Nibbana which is the ending of desire, aversion and delusion. This is why Jhana is like a training with a straw man to finally be able to "do it", incline to the deathless, dispassion:
“Suppose that an archer or archer’s apprentice were to practice on a straw man or mound of clay, so that after a while he would become able to shoot long distances, to fire accurate shots in rapid succession, and to pierce great masses. In the same way, there is the case where a monk… enters & remains in the first jhāna: rapture & pleasure born of seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, not-self. He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: ‘This is peace, this is exquisite—the pacification of all fabrications; the relinquishing of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; unbinding.’
JHANA SUTTA AN9.36
It's not necessarily true. For example, in the "hard jhana " instructions I'm familar with, the very desire to experience jhana is a main obstacle. Such practice involves dealing with craving, clinging and becoming, 4 Noble Truths and DO. Those instructions also talk about hindrances and kilesas, which must be dealed with, prior to entering jhana. And as such sublimed state can't be kept forever and controled, it also teaches about 3 marks of existence. So I don't see it, as something separated from the Dhamma.
I can see the danger of attachment and lack of further investigation of Dukkha, if one gets stuck ina bliss. But piti and sukha, the divine bliss, is present in the " wisdom jhana", anyway. And so is the danger of attachment to pleasure. It's just a sign of lack of understanding of Dhamma...like monks addicted to tobbaco or betel.
This is the problem that I see as the most important one. The Buddha clearly says that the pleasure of Jhanas needs not to be feared and nowhere it is said that you don't have to desire a pleasant abiding that is defined as "unblemished". And btw we have many masters and meditators that have tried absorption Jhanas and warns about them since they got stucked in the bliss. They got it wrong? Maybe, or maybe not. Of course, if you ask to A.Brahm it will say that they are wrong.

But the desire to experience pleasure of Jhana is not an obstacle at all in the wisdom-jhanas, you don't even have to let go that desire since it is actually the desire of letting go of sensuality since you see that is the best for you, not to experience godlike pleasure by lettingo go of control and sense that is a wholly different technique. The obstacle in wisdom-jhanas is that one simply doesn't want to renunciate desire, conceits, aversions and cruelty (which is subtle sometimes, like gossip) because there's still no good analysis of the drawbacks for entering them and there's no cultivation of the wholesome while inside the first jhana so to strenghten the renunciation by seeing that renunciation as pleasurable when you're able to enter it by the u-turn on your mind. For the Buddha whatever the world calls happiness is suffering, and what the world calls suffering (renunciation) is happiness (don't have the sutta number at hand, sorry).

Imagine that after training and analysis you start to savor the bliss of being non-averse when you get in touch with a thought that usually makes you upset. That bliss is the happiness of renunciation, the happiness of calm, the happiness of awakening (MN66). You can't attach to that or, if that can be called attachment, it is an spiritual pleasure that you don't have to fear being attached to, because it clearly inclines you towards Nibbana and it is similar to Nibbana. what's the problem if you start to feel happiness from pleasant feelings caused by your wisdom of non-aversion? You are doing a work of mind-conditioning that will strenghten the u-turn, that for jhanas is not permanent, that the Buddha asks you to do after careful analysis of allure, drawback and escape. If you develop those jhanas you will never get stuck, because the u-turn will gently incline you towards disenchantment and dispassion the more and more you sincerely do it. You will want more peace, you will want more detachment, you will want less delusion. You will never get stuck if the mind is inclined in that way since the godlike pleasure would never be the goal of your practice, but the reasoning about your well-being will be.

You will probably develop conceit and feelings of superiority by being able to do that and comparing to others on the path that are behind you, but it is a different thing and the Buddha warned about that possibility in a dedicated sutta and of course the delusion about the self is another kind of renunciation since the self is an acquisition. How do you will abandon that acquisition? By experience the lack of control of deep absorption that is simply an altered experience (but that acquisition will come back again, since you haven't reasoned about the drawbacks and made the u-turn, maybe you will convince from that experience that ultimately there's no self while you go around producing one all the time when not in Jhana, this was my mistake years ago that was hopefully corrected by Thanissaro) or by precisely discovering that not selfing, lack of acquisition (renunciation) is for your welfare in the long term?
Tennok wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:45 am And the last question for you...what is the goal of Dhamma? Is it Sati and Panna, or the end of Dukkha?
The ending of Dukkha seems impossible to me without knowing the teachings and then developing sati-sampajanno which is the direct application of that Dhamma on every occasion when you are in the world. Seems two faces of the same coin for me, but maybe I can't grasp the full meaning of the question.

With metta.

And sorry, But I will not have much time again to respond this week! I'll check if I can give a short answer if you reply, but it is evident that being concise is a thing that I'm not skilled to do :jumping:

* as for ekagatta meaning, i suggest Khemara Bhikku: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gT1rCJ ... vzcuX/view
Last edited by nirodh27 on Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by nirodh27 »

mikenz66 wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:31 am That's certainly what it looks like to me (a straw person). I'm not fanboy of Ajahn Brahm, but his approach certainly involves a lot of letting go, not obsessing about, or clinging to, anything. I would also point out that what has been quoted above is, according to AB, a few steps away from jhāna.
See: https://bswa.org/bswp/wp-content/upload ... tation.pdf

:heart:
Mike
Hi Mikenz66,

I fully recognize that letting go of desire for the pleasure of Jhana is crucial in A.Bhram method, but that pleasure is the main goal nonethless. I've tried to explain why the approach that i see in MN19/MA102 makes more sense and his advantages. After you convince yourself about Vitakka&Vicara being simply thought, you simply can't unsee the problem that the two methods differs a lot even if no system is devoid of a Dhammic intent.
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Tennok
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by Tennok »

Thanx nirodh27

It was a very interesting post. Could be even longer, no problem :smile:

I agree about those 2 approaches both being grounded in the Dhamma and I can see why you prefer the insight oriented one. Fair enough. The big ecstasy of jhana, present in the middle of the path of rennounciation, is troubling. Probably that's why it's such a debated topic.

I ve read that Ajahn Chah often warned his pupils about absorbed jhanas. And I wondered if A. Brahm had to do his blisfull practices in secret, while under Chah's guidance. :smile: Funny thing is, that Chah, while being sceptical about absorptions, explained vittaca and viccara just like Sujato. Vitakka as "lifting of the attention" and vicara as contemplation.

And thanx for the sutta suggestion. It's a good one. Sounds very usefull. I think Thanissaro refered to it in "With each and every breath".

Actually I don't see those two paths you describe, as mutualy exclusive or hostile. They may work in tandem, to some extend...for example by staritng the meditation with reflections about Dhamma, metta and kilesa observation and cleaning - like in MN 20 - and, eventually letting go of all the words, concepts and thoughts. I sometimes try to combine kung fu styles of Tahnissaro and Brahm in my practice...I think they complement each other, in a way. Like Apollo and Dionysos, analysis and synthesis.

And I still think, that experience of dropping the identification with the senses and the body in the jhana, may work as a greeat practice before Nibbana, perhaps a necessary practice. I hope to find out myself, some day.

At the end, all that helps us to end Dukkha, is a good thing.

metta & thanx
Tennok
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by Crazy cloud »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:11 am how is this not Right Samādhi?
If it results in stable happiness in the ordinary state of mind it must be right, but if there's only happiness in this conditioned trance state, then how can it be right?
If you didn't care
What happened to me
And I didn't care for you

We would zig-zag our way
Through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain

Wondering which of the
Buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing
- Roger Waters
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by BrokenBones »

Crazy cloud wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:29 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:11 am how is this not Right Samādhi?
If it results in stable happiness in the ordinary state of mind it must be right, but if there's only happiness in this conditioned trance state, then how can it be right?
I think you've hit the nail on the head. A couple of hours 'afterglow' after the trance doesn't really measure up.
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by AlexBrains92 »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:25 am
confusedlayman wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:18 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:11 am According to the absorbed view of Jhāna when one is secluded from the senses one is also secluded from desire. There is then an indescribable rapture and bliss which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought on the meditation object. After exiting this ecstatic god-like bliss one does not lust after sense experiences again and so the fetter of kāmacchando is fully abandoned. My question for the non-absorbed Jhāna folks is, how is this not Right Samādhi?
what if one thinks jhana is hard to get even though one attained it once in a while but sensual pleasure are easy to get and still enjoy sensual pleasure?

only wisdom can cut off lust and not just mere experience of jhana
No. It is the experience of Jhāna which cuts off lust.

"Before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too clearly saw with right wisdom that: ‘Sense objects give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks.’ But so long as I didn’t achieve the rapture and bliss that are apart from sense objects and unskillful qualities, or something even more peaceful than that, I didn’t announce that I would not return to sense objects. But when I did achieve that rapture and bliss, or something more peaceful than that, I announced that I would not return to sense objects."

- MN 14

“When serenity is developed, what purpose does it serve? The mind is developed. And when the mind is developed, what purpose does it serve? Lust is abandoned.”

“When insight is developed, what purpose does it serve? Wisdom is developed. And when wisdom is developed, what purpose does it serve? Ignorance is abandoned."


AN 2.31
:goodpost:

«He does not construct even the subtlest apperception with regard
to what is seen, heard or thought; how would one conceptualise
that Brahmin in this world, who does not appropriate a view?

They do not fabricate, they do not prefer, they do not accept any
doctrine; the Brahmin cannot be inferred through virtue or vows,
such a person has gone to the far shore and does not fall back.»


- Snp 4.5 -
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by auto »

AlexBrains92 wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:50 am ..
term for lust is rāga - greed
https://dictionary.sutta.org/browse/r/r%C4%81ga/ wrote:PTS Pali-English dictionary The Pali Text Society's Pali-English dictionary

Rāga,[cp.Sk.rāga,fr.raj: see rajati] 1.colour,hue; colouring,dye Vin.II,107 (aṅga° “rougeing” the body:bhikkhū aṅgarāgaṁ karonti); ThA.78; SnA 315 (nānāvidha°).-- 2 (as t.t.in philosophy & ethics) excitement,passion; seldom by itself,mostly in combn with dosa, & moha,as the three fundamental blemishes of character:passion or lust (uncontrolled excitement),ill-will (anger) and infatuation (bewilderment)
Ceiswir is a bit off, he tries to equate kāma as sense objects and also seem equating greed with sense objects.

According to Horner, kāma is pleasures of the senses. Now if you read further then says senses are of much ill. Greed seem to be under the kāma, not equal or being it(kāma).
https://suttacentral.net/mn14/en/horner?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote: ‘Pleasures of the senses are of little satisfaction, of much ill, of much tribulation wherein is more peril.’ and if this comes to be well seen, as it really is, through perfect intuitive wisdom by the ariyan disciple, and if he comes to rapture and joy apart from pleasures of the senses, apart from unskilled states of mind, and to something better than that, then he is one who is not seduced by pleasures of the senses.
i think greed is a kamma result(rebirth linking consciousness) of sense pleasure being weak in satisfaction. It is boosted by seclusion, by restraining senses the response to sense objects grows and one will become satisfied without effort, it results in having less suffering and less distress, one is happy with less.
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Modus.Ponens
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Re: When Jhāna isn't Jhāna

Post by Modus.Ponens »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:11 am According to the absorbed view of Jhāna when one is secluded from the senses one is also secluded from desire. There is then an indescribable rapture and bliss which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought on the meditation object. After exiting this ecstatic god-like bliss one does not lust after sense experiences again and so the fetter of kāmacchando is fully abandoned. My question for the non-absorbed Jhāna folks is, how is this not Right Samādhi?
Hi Ceisiwr,

I'm not sure what you're asking exactly. Aren't sense desires abandoned only at the Anagami stage of awakening?
'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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