Hello everyone,

I have had these questions for a while.
I read in MTCB, here on this forum and also somewhere in Kenneth Folk's writings that after you have attained SE, you have the ability to enter the first 4 jhana's. But when you have been through the review fase and started a new cycle for 2nd path, you have to start from the first nana again. So isn't it possible to enter the 4th jhana and then investigate and enter the 11th nana and then attain 2nd path? Do you lose the ability to enter the jhana's as soon as the new cycle for another path starts? Are the jhana's for every path different?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Different people have different levels of natural "talent" for the jhanas. The majority of practitioners get more access at each path so yes first or second path you usually can get the first 4 jhanas lightly or hard. Some do not get much jhana going though.
No, you will naturally move up throught the Nanas at least once to get to EQ the hard way. Once this is done then yes, you can jhana up to maybe 4th and move over to EQ nana and start insite practise from there (although in my expereince it was starting in 3rd jhana in Re-Ob then slide up to EQ). I did this pretty exclusively
No, never heard of that happening but if you are used to effortlessly riding up the jhanas with the nanas during review stage you may be dissappointed on the effort and time needed to get jhanas going when they seemed easy before.
No,  Though the clarity may improve adding more aspects to them and intensity.

Good luck,
~D

In editing MCTB2, I saw that Daniel tells of having all 8 jhanas immediately after an early path (I think it was first path, actually!). However, he soon lost access and it was another 2 years before he could access them all again, which he had to work at the hard way. He mentions that his experience in this regard was highly unusual, though.

Anything I say from my own experience has to be taken in with the knowledge that my path has been unusual, too, in some ways. Specifically, it turns out that what I thought was stream entry August 8, 2014, was actually second path. Or I got two paths at once. Or halfway between first path moment and next one, when I had a midpath shift, that was actually second. All I know is that I had another shift Jan. 29, and it came with walking-around 24/7 perceptual difference that fits the MCTB descriptions for third path.

After the Aug. 8 shift, I suddenly had hard 1-4 and boundless space with the merest inclination, and sometimes completely involuntarily. Over the next few months I got boundless conciousness. So my jhanas were indeed very different before and after that August path. Experiences of the factors can become richer with paths, I think, and with experimentation with different objects and with exercises that will come out with MCTB2.