I asked a follow up question and the answer kinda blew my mind :
That is most excellent Bhante ! Very useful in clearing a lot of doubts I had on this matter. By the way, I'm currently reading the academic book "Early Buddhist Meditations" from Keren Arbel and in a scholarly way her analysis supports the understanding of Jhanas you've put forth in your essay.I have a question : in your personal experience or overall in people's experience abiding/practicing in those correct Jhanas, does the experience of each of the four jhanas clearly distinct from one another ? Is there a distinct feel/taste/knowing change when the mind goes from one to another ?
Answer :
"from Keren Arbel and in a scholarly way her analysis supports the understanding of Jhanas you've put forth in your essay."
Yes, I came across that one. It was not bad, relatively speaking. But if you read closely, you'll see that she still thinks "thinking" is somehow in and of itself an obstacle. It's hard for people to abandon that notion, because that's when you get in the realm of
actually having to become dispassionate towards the entire world correctly (which is experienced
through your thinking, nothing else), not run away from it.
"I have a question : in your personal experience or overall in people's experience abiding/practicing in those correct Jhanas, does the experience of each of the four jhanas clearly distinct from one another ? Is there a distinct feel/taste/knowing change when the mind goes from one to another ?"
Most definitely, to the point where "distinct feel" would be an extreme understatement. This is another one of the huge discrepancies in the common understanding of jhāna, where it's basically just "absorbed... even more absorbed... even more absorbed..." and people use the term "deep samādhi" to describe it―a contradiction in terms, and carries the connotation of
digging yourself further into a hole so you have even less perspective, whereas samādhi is all about
going up, elevating the mind.
All the terms and "factors" the Suttas use to describe each jhāna are usually just being read into the experience of being "locked" into the object, worsened by the fact that you're not supposed to be able to reflect while you're in the supposed "jhāna" or you will lose it, which means you can't even soberly recognize what phenomena are present (which, contradictorily, is exactly what Sāriputta was doing in
every single attainment in MN 111).
So in the end, what people are going through in those "jhānas" is not actually changing all that much. It's just different perceptions coming up that are regarded as "special",
and that's why the experiences vary from person to person. Also, there is an inherent but subtle craving to get "more" and you get bored if you just do the same one forever, which shows how it's not even free from longing, the first hindrance. (With even the basic first jhāna, despite all that thinking and pondering, it's
inconceivable to want or need anything, whether worldly or "spiritual", which is why it's sufficient for Arahantship.)
When you ascend from an actual jhāna to the next, you're ascending into an entirely different
plane of existence, literally. (This is why there's one separate Brahma realm for each jhāna, and the beings in a lower one are completely unaware that there is a higher realm―a higher jhāna―than theirs, like the Brahma Baka in MN 49, who genuinely thought he was the foremost in the entire universe. These are not random fairytales).
So, a higher jhana is not just "different" from the previous one. Comparing them as two objects is impossible because you can only
exist within one of them at any time. In other words, your thought of a jhāna while your not in that jhāna is
not that jhāna; it's a thought within your current plane of existence. You can't "relate" to the second one while you're in the first, and while you're not in jhāna at all, you can't even relate to the first one. That's why we say the hindrances are your
state of being too; they're not things you temporarily get rid off by suppressing your thoughts.
"Bhikkhus, there are these four inconceivable matters that one should not try to conceive; one who tries to conceive them would reap either madness or frustration. What four? (1) The domain of the Buddhas is an inconceivable matter that one should not try to conceive; one who tries to conceive it would reap either madness or frustration. (2) The comprehension-sphere of one in jhāna (jhāyissa jhānavisayo) is an inconceivable matter … (3) The result of kamma is an inconceivable matter … (4) Speculation about the world is an inconceivable matter that one should not try to conceive; one who tries to conceive it would reap either madness or frustration. These are the four inconceivable matters that one should not try to conceive; one who tries to conceive them would reap either madness or frustration.” ―AN 4.77
With the modern "jhāna" you can very much conceive it and imagine what it's like before experiencing it without reaping madness or frustration, because it's just "remove the thinking, add a fixed object and the ecstatic pleasure". And you can
crave for it sensually as well because it's just another experience within the same sensual realm you were born into. Whatever you reach there will still be sensual, even on a very subtle level, no matter how peaceful and liberating it feels.
(See also AN 3.94, which says that a noble disciple cannot be reborn in the sensual realm if he dies while his mind is established in the plane of the first jhana. That's because his citta is
already not here while he's alive, so to speak, despite still having the same functioning 5 senses. The jhānas are called
"superhuman states" as well, and you lose your monkhood forever if you claim to have them when you know you don't. They're no joke, and they most certainly don't happen by accident during a 10-day retreat).
