Just wondering - I haven't seen reference to "Vipassana Jhanas" anywhere but in Dan's book. Did this model originate with him? If not, are there any books that discuss it other than MTCTOTB?

Kenneth Folk also talks about such things:

http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Jhana+and+%C3%91ana

Yes, but didn't he get it from Bill Hamilton? I guess I should have asked, does the "Vipassana Jhana" concept originate with Bill Hamilton.

In the book Daniel presents several models of the Vipassana Jhanas, one is based on Bill Hamilton, one seems to be a fractal elaboration on that and one that is based on the teachings of U Pandita (p. 227) which is different from the previous ones. I think I've heard references to U Pandita's model in other works as well but I don't know how mainstream it is. Check out Chapter 5 in U Pandita's book "In this Very Life." - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pesala/Pandita/html/jhanas.html

A Google search for the term "vipassana jhana" yields a ton of stuff.
From what I could see, nearly all of these teachings seem to come straight from the Mahasi Sayadaw lineage. That's where Bill Hamilton got the concept, right? Anyway, there's a lot here. If you find anything stating plainly the historical origin of the concept of vipassana jhana, let us know. I wonder if it comes from the commentaries rather than the suttas? Is it only operative in the Burmese tradition? Ooops--don't want to get into theoretician territory!

http://www.google.com/search?q=vipassana+jhana&rlz=1I7DKUS_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7

Great, thanks guys. It looks like it goes back to U Pandita as noted, if not farther.

I think the idea of vipassana jhana started with the Burmese interpretation of the Visuddhimagga, based on a sub-commentary. The Visuddhimagga was itself already a commentary, and then the modern Burmese insight masters interpreted some language regarding different types of jhana in the sub-commentary in such a way that led to their concept of vipassana jhana.


Nowadays, the hardcore dharma scene has somewhat altered the concept further. This was presumably due to new knowledge and a desire to separate wheat from chaff in the available Buddhist literature on insight meditation. (Removing the stuff about arahats being unable to do any wrong, and only "hard jhana" being counted as "jhana" at all, and other such stuff.)

It's a really useful teaching, IMO. There are some crazy similarities between Mind and Body and the first shamatha jhana, and the same is true for A&P with the second jhana, Dissolution with the third jhana, and Equanimity with the fourth jhana.