If the 4th jhana corresponds to the 11th nana, is it possible to bypass the dukkha nanas by practicing samatha up to the 4th jhana, then "vipassanizing" it, arriving in EQ?
If this is not possible, why is this?
What got me thinking about this was a passage from
this article, where Nikolai Halay writes:
"a yogi could technically bypass the "rougher" dukkha nanas via developing direct access to the first four "samatha" jhanas and practice discernment in them. Either way,
if a yogi gets to the same strata of mind that is the 11th nana/4th jhana, a path moment is on the agenda."
The reason I ask is because my samatha practice really took off a few weeks ago - I can now reliably enter all 8 jhanas.
However, any attempts I've made at dissolving any coarse blocks of sensation from within these jhanas (even when concentration is especially strong and there's very little discernible mental movement) have proven disappointing, often with no real increased ability to perceive more subtle sensations at all (I should add that I've only ever tried this for a few seconds at most). So I'm unsure whether to continue with samatha as I've been doing, down that long, dark tunnel towards Ajahn Brahm's definition of jhana (actually I'm getting some faint nimitta now and a gradual loss of hearing, so that's promising), or to take up vipassana again.
Another consideration is that I'm currently doing a very tough computer science degree, so if I really am below the A&P (as was the conclusion reached
here), I'd definitely like to stay that way. I'm finding that hard to believe though, given that any time I've stopped for a few moments and entered (very light) jhana in daily life, it always seems to be 3rd or 4th, and my mood always seems to be correspondingly anxious/irritable or calm/equanimous, plus some recent, more intense experiences that seem to roughly match up with descriptions of the A&P and DN symptoms when my concentration has been stronger.
Any advice on where I'm at and what I should do would be great.
Edit: slight changes to "The reason I ask...", made "However, any..." a new paragraph