I have been reading a meditation book about a concentration practice - anapanasati. A few questions and observations have arose as a result of reading this book, looking for feedback on any and all of them.

1. One of the main goals in the text is to achieve jhana, specifically first jhana. He describes jhana as a complete mind state where one cannot see, hear, speak, think, feel, or smell anything. You are basically a dead person sitting there blissing out. I am guessing this is true since he is a renound teacher but I was surprised at first to see jhana being explained this way, as I have never attainted it or read much about it.

2. He says stream entry is possible by entering jhana and reviewing the experience afterwards. Profound insight is gained this way. Even enlightenment is possible by working with the jhanas and not doing any insight practice. I thought insight was gained in the experience itself, without thinking about things. Is there a divide here between intellectual insight and ultimate insight?

3. Where does noting come in to play here in the context of jhana / concentration based practice?

4. At this point, I think jhana is the way to go in terms of my practice. At the moment, I think I am diddling around in the dark night and there seems to be a filter of delusion over my mind, my perception is tainted by something and percieving things clearly is a challenge. Concentration is also a challenge. I am beginning to notice the 5 hindrances very clearly when I sit in almost all of my mental activity. The author says after entering jhana, the mind has diamond precision and is free from all hindrances, which makes "seeing things as they are" very easy. This sounds like something I would benefit from in my practice in order to gain insight.

I believe this to be false, the first jhana as spoken of by the Buddha is characterized by five factors: directed thought, sustained thought, bliss, pleasantness and one pointedness of mind.

(In other words it is possible to volitionally construct jhana, actually it is completely necessary to volitionally construct jhana, jhana cannot be attained without volition.)

In my experience, jhana is a deeply bodily experience wherein one touches the bases with one's body, jhana does not necessitate the ending of all mental faculties, that sounds like dead concentration.

Jhana as an experience is a) very pleasant b) dynamic, meaning there is insight and serenity present at the same time and c) almost akin to the deathless, but not quite.

There is a short group of suttas that explain various terms as being none other than the phenomena of jhana, ex:

The deathless, the deathless...

Nibbana, nibbana...

Security, security...

Parinibbana, parinibbana...

Etc.

The above phenomena in these suttas are defined as entering the jhanas, however with a caveat, they are defined in this way only in the provisional sense. The Buddha (or rather it was Ananda who was discoursing) states that only the cessation of perception and feeling (sanna vedayita nirodha) is the above terms, non-provisionally.



I definitely believe jhana is the path to nibbana, as the Buddha stated that he rediscovered it in the Maha Saccaka sutta, or rather after much austerity he considered the pleasant wholesome pleasure was in fact a good thing.

In fact the Buddha goes so far as to say: "Samadhi is the path, no samadhi is the bad path."

The Buddha spoke highly of jhana, referring to it as a quality higher and more sublime than knowledge and vision (Cula-Saropama sutta).

In the Maha-Malunkyaputta sutta and the Atthakanagara sutta, the Buddha refers to jhana as one of the paths to the ending of the five lower fetters. It's probably best if you read those source materials for yourself.

It sounds like you're reading "Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond" by Ajahn Brahm.

Ajahn Brahm is a strong advocate of "static" jhana and wouldn't call anything short of extremely concentrated states "jhana."  There are other teachers (B. Alan Wallace) who also do this.

There is a good explanation of the difference between "static" and "dynamic" jhana by Kenneth Folk on his old (now defunct) website.  I was able to recover it, animations and all, using the wayback machine (click the link):


https://web.archive.org/web/20130101142741/http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Dynamic+Jhana+vs+Static+Jhana

This is the same as the difference between samatha and vipassana jhanas.  

Dynamic Jhana = vipassana jhana
Static Jhana = samatha jhana

The distinction between the two is on a spectrum ("soft" to "hard" jhana).  Noticing the three characteristics (impermanence) of a samatha jhana will break it down into a vipassana jhana.  Concentrating on a single point within a vipassana jhana will build it up into a samatha jhana.

There are some teachers who would not call any "soft" jhana a "jhana" and would instead say the term jhana only applies to "super rock hard" jhana.

Yes! Nice job thats the book. I grabbed it because my concentration skills are balls at the moment, or at least I think they are to Ajahn Brahm's standards in his book. Great animations by the way, thanks for grabbing that.

Where is a good place then to stop practice on concentration and begin to do noting? Originally I was surprised to hear of Brahm's description of the jhana because I thought to myself, you can't practice noting without thought...

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James thank you as well for the information. I haven't read any of the Buddha's direct teachings yet, just a few books. I've been trying hard to maintain daily practice so most of my time is consumed by that. Where would a good place be to find his original teachings and check them out?

Hi Jake, here you go:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/
http://wisdompubs.org/collections/wisdom-academics?f%5b0%5d=field_collection%253Aparents_all%3A32

In the beginning it can seem like dry a endeavour to read the suttas, but you will find that they can be of great benefit for your practice. The Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya) are probably a good place to start as they contain many teachings about meditation and the Noble Eightfold Path.

A good addendum are Bhikkhu Bodhis lectures on the Majjhima Nikāya:
A Systematic Study of the Majjhima Nikaya
https://www.youtube.com/user/venbodhi/videos
http://www.noblepath.org/audio.html

Piya Tan also has some helpful interpretation on many of the suttas available:
http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/sutta-titles-2/majjhima-nikaya

Yo,

Andreas pretty much covered all the good bases, Access to Insight and Dharmafarer are really great places to start (and end), all are free of course. It is likely that you won't need much else besides those resources to make great, great, progress in your practice.

I really, really, really, like Piya Tan's translation style, and prefer it over Thanissaro's style, however there is a greater volume of translation available on Access to Insight than on Dharmafarer. Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations are great too! But those are only available as books.

Regards,

James

The Fruits of the Homeless Life in the Long Discourses of the Buddha is a particularly profound sutta, especially if you are working towards attaining jhana.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.02.0.than.html

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