What a pleasant surprise, a new book of Nyanamoli! Thanks for pointing out Retro!
retrofuturist wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 12:07 am
Greetings,
I'm hoping this text might flesh out some of the ideas I was exploring previously here,
Phases and applications of Sense Restraint in daily life. Through that exploration I concluded that there's a limit to how far the lay practitioner can profitably take this pursuit, so I look forward to anything that challenges that perspective.
Unfortunately, I came to the same conclusion. For what I consider the sutta jhanas (which are very similar to the ones of Nyanamoli) Lay life (engaged one, of course if one creates the conditions of hermitage is different) cannot support them.
Concentrative jhanas (the one of Pa Auk/Shaila Catherine/Ayya Khema for example) can be mantained as a form of pleasure with a rigorous approach and in which the letting go is one avoidance / non-contact with the world. This is a thing shared by many practitioners. Of course, the dopamine and pleasure that one can experience is not unlimited, so it is a form of pleasure that you need to balance in a laylife renouncing to use that limited source elsewhere and btw is a lot more prone to be taken away from you (since the rigorous conditions are actually hard to respect and laylife is way way more inconstant than monk's life) and ofc you don't have to desire them to be the only thing that you do all the time, which is very easy to do for hermit-like characters.
In other words, if you are ‘doing’ the non-activity because you don’t want to deal with dukkha internally, you are deluding
yourself just as much as the one who runs to sensuality in order to avoid emotional discomfort.
I feel that for pure-concentration jhanas, this is the mindset that many times occurs. They don't occur naturally from understanding, but from actively "do" the separation from the unwelcomed. It is an escape that is not an u-turn seeing the world upside-down, but a technique.
Instead the jhanas of renunciation that I find perfectly described here
Such a samādhi practice will result in the pleasure that the Buddha praises, the pleasure that is different from the pleasure of sensuality, that of not being bothered, the pleasure of being withdrawn from danger, the pleasure of internal safety of a mind that has turned away from the entire world. It is a pleasure that you cannot crave more of, because it didn’t come in that external sense of just replacing one experience with another. The pleasure of jhāna is the pleasure of that withdrawal. It is a result of that seclusion from and non-activity of going after sense pleasures or of needing to get rid of discomfort.
are the jhanas of u-turn of renunciation and those can be known from laypeople, but if they choose to remain engaged in the world by work or relationship, that is simply to serve 2 masters like in the gospel: you cannot serve both. They totally deplete every willingness to have engagement with the world (because you see the dangers so well and the escape is way more calm and appealing): relationships would be guided by compassion if there's the need or else there's really no point in talking, engaging, etc. Work that needs energy and interest will be impossible to be mantained as well. Who wants to live with a person that, when you make a gift to him, is totally disinterested, and it is also disinterested in your presence or in what you say about every argument?
As said here, for someone that engages with the world, jhanas almost impossible as explained well in MN122
Ānanda, it is not possible that a bhikkhu who delights in company, takes delight in company, and devotes himself to
delight in company, who delights in society, takes delight in society, and rejoices in society, will ever obtain at will, without trouble or difficulty, the joy of renunciation, the joy of seclusion, the joy of peace, the joy of awakening. But it can be expected that when a bhikkhu lives alone, withdrawn from society, he will obtain at will, without trouble or difficulty, the joy of renunciation, the joy of seclusion, the joy of peace, the joy of Nibbāna ...’ – MN 122
while are natural for one that doesn't engage because the escape is seen as health, as safety (Which it is)
That is why I find strange when Monks asks to laypeople to engage in sense-retraint tout-court. They have to be perfectly clear that or it is a lay-hermit style, or you will have to become one if you progress up to a certain point. Remember that if one doesn't have the higher pleasure (so Jhana), the only way to escape Dukkha for the unenlightened is to find a source of Sukha in sensuality
so Sense-restraint actually removes also that option. It is fine instead to do that for a period until you discover some things about identity (and btw if you do, it means that you are really f*** suffering your condition, so you will do that nonethless searching for someone who knows a way out), then one have to make the choice based again in his sensibility to Dukkha and other factors like responsability and the happiness of others.
Sense Restraint can be useful for a time to arrive at seeing many important things about Dhamma so that you will be a lay people that knows the escape and can choose the engagements wisely and "be saved by sati" when too much Dukkha is coming from an attachment so that you will not fall into heavy forms of Dukkha like despair, lament etc because you always have the knowledge of how to escape (non-acquisition). This is in a sutta in which the Buddha praises the lay-person that knows the escape, but still enjoys sensual pleasures (ofc etical ones).
Total sense-restraint strenghten Dukkha and makes it more visible and you can really see the demon of tanha going outside and inside searching for delight, which again is fine if you want to go full-route, else it is counterproductive and
the middle is not an enjoyable place to be. My best insights into the Dhamma happened when sense-restraint was total and Dukkha was made extremely visible due to non-action (actually, this strategy was suggested by Ajahn Sumedho). But then maybe you go back and, if by any reason you don't want to go further, you have to stop sense-restraint tout-court and wisely choose the ethical ways to cope with Dukkha in the best possible, and imperfect, way. Knowing that abandonment and memory of the teachings can save you anytime, like a guardian angel that intervenes when you are taking a wrong direction. Which is already quite an achievement in my opinion.