BrokenBones wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:51 pm
Re the deathless:-
I've never been to a strip club
but if I incline my mind towards such a place I'll surely get there. Inclining one's mind towards something does not imply that one has already experienced it.
We can incline the mind towards something unknown. However, no towards its property when this is still unknown.
I understand your analogy. I believe I could build another one using sex. However, maybe there is people without sex experience reading this board.
We can incline the mind when seeing a cake never tasted before because we know the pleasure of eating cakes. However, that new cake is not a cheesecake, strawberry cake, chocolate cake, or any other cake previously tasted. We cannot incline the mind to the property of this cake, because we don't know its taste.
In a similar way, we can incline the mind towards nibbana because we have experience about tasting happiness. Although we cannot incline the mind to the property of nibbana until tasting that.
IMHO that Sutta is addressed to disciples who were already ariyas. There are other Suttas about jhanas which are not addressed only to ariyas.
My main point is that Buddha's jhana is underpinned and saturated with wisdom and is not just a mindless springboard from which you can start to develop wisdom.
there is no a "saturation" of wisdom because the abiding in any experience. There is people who can grow in wisdom practicing jhanas while others no. I believe this is not a problem of the tool but about kamma. Also there is people who become engaged in a tool which kammically couldn't be the best choosing. However, this situation is also more kamma and is impossible to know what is the right thing for each person. Most times one doesn't know for oneself, therefore how to know about third people. Such knowledge of other people is exclusive for a Buddha. This is one of the 6 knowledges exclusives of a Buddha.
Do you not see that the path is described as having wisdom (View, Sila, Effort & Mindfulness) as being the bedrock for the Buddha's jhana to arise.
these are components present in any type of cultivation. Also, note the cultivation of jhanas is a practice to get skills to abide in jhanas. However, a jhanic absorption also will arise in a cultivation of wisdom at the moment of the path to nibbana, although lasting just some instants
I think a lot of misunderstanding has occurred with the oft repeated warning that jhana is not nibbana or the end of the path... this is absolutely true but it has developed into the idea that jhanas are not a major part of the wisdom that will allow enlightenment to arise.
that's not my case. At least I agree the cultivation of jhanas is a main tool of the training taught by the Buddha.
This idea reached its zenith with the vipassana movement where jhana is relegated to a needless backwater despite being the peak of the path that the Buddha outlined. It's not nibbana but it's the last stepping stone before.
Even in the suttas, the Buddha's anupubbikatha teachings to laypeople imply that a jhanic samadhi is part of their sudden entry to the stream... most of us aren't so fortunate and have to put in the hard yards.
yes, as you writes there is a very short jhanic absorption in such cases. This is an issue maybe not well developed or explained in the tradition. I think the same here.
Anyway, the arising of mdoern vipassana practices was due to factors different than an opposition against the seated meditation or the jhanas. At the end of 19th century and beginnings of 20th, the alphabetization and the spreading of printed books caused a new interest in many lay people in Asia to practice, beyond a simple devotional position. The spreading of the vipassana teachings was a very compassive reaction of the Burmese Sangha with the lay followers, giving to them new powerful tools more suitable for the lay life.
Anyway, there is no doubt the cultivation of jhanas is a main tool inside the Buddha teaching. As also the cultivation of wisdom, loving-kindness, etcetera. If one feel faith in his own approach there is no reason to change that. Neither to dismiss the rest, I believe.