Hello

Is it possible to develop medicinal powers through jhana? For example, I listened on the dhammatube channel of a monk telling a story of another monk who "burned up" his liver cancer, because he had control over the fire element. I wonder if there are specific medicinal powers to be developed through jhana. I've never seen them in any scripture or the vimuttimagga.

Best wishes.

According to the Samadhanga Sutta:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.028.than.html

"If he wants, he wields manifold supranormal powers. Having been one he becomes many; having been many he becomes one. He appears. He vanishes. He goes unimpeded through walls, ramparts, and mountains as if through space. He dives in and out of the earth as if it were water. He walks on water without sinking as if it were dry land. Sitting crosslegged he flies through the air like a winged bird. With his hand he touches and strokes even the sun and moon, so mighty and powerful. He exercises influence with his body even as far as the Brahma worlds. He can witness this for himself whenever there is an opening."

It doesn't specifically mention healing, but I would imagine that if you could do all these other things then healing would be also be possible.

Sawfoot brings up an interesting point. Though you find these amazing powers documented in the Suttas - I am not aware of these being spoken of in terms of healing there. Perhaps that was outside Buddhas focus, unknown at the time, or who knows?

Jhana does not have a universal definition. Don’t know what tradition the monk you speak of is coming from but in the Thai Forest Tradition you find lots of energy practices mixed into the Jhana practice - this may come from influences from northern India or because Thailand used to be Mahayana but i think they got into the mix early on in the tradition. And of course you find energy practices as a form of healing throughout Asia. But I recall hearing a similar story about a lay practitioner in Burma practicing some sort of vipassana.

My own personnel experience is that I have had pain that often recurred over 20 years break up and disappear (not returned in 15 years) as a direct result of chi gong practice - not exactly liver cancer though. Have also had excruciating back pain explode into jolts of electricity that shot out my legs and the pain vanished. The experience as I have known it involves going into and being with the pain until it breaks up (which can be a very intense experience) and then allowing it to clear out and open up the channels through that area. I think at least some vipassana practices would do the same kind of thing - such as Goenka body scanning.

There was an American by the name of Randolph Stone that spent most of his life looking into this phenomena and applying it in his practice. He came up with something called Polarity Therapy - you might check into his works. His understanding was that physical health problems arose when the underlying subtle-energy body became unbalanced.

In my quest for the truth I have seen a decrease in the effect that pain has on me psychologically. I take this for granted usually. There are of course trade offs. One of these is the fact that I am much more aware to the process of aging.

But then again, I don't think my "spiritual practices" have made aging any more painful than it already is.

I stumbled on a book by Joel S. Goldsmith recently, a Christian healer. It came out to have a very Buddhism tone but is of Christian tradition and discuss the healing abilities of Jesus. His point being that since everything is a manifestation of the unified mind, and that every manifestation is a form of belief, so are disease. So it's in line with the Powers. The difference here might be that in the Buddhists traditions, as far as I know, we don't hear much about healing others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_S._Goldsmith

I would really like to get in touch with people working with those concepts, in Christian or Buddhist context as my mind is more open to those sort of things than it was before.

There are certainly many claims of physical healing through meditation practice. Sayadaw U Pandita mentions some in In This Very Life (very good reading, and freely available online.) There was a man who, apparently, had a stomach tumor disappear after stream entry. There are a few other "miraculous healing" cases mentioned as well. Pandita states that one could fill a whole book with the healings that occurred through meditation.

Then again, recent studies show that as many as ten out of ten people will die some day, so while healing powers are nice and can be the cause of much good in the world, enlightenment should probably your first stop.

My IBS got cured when I reached equanimity but this one is't too hard to explain. IBS is a dysfunction of intestine muscles and by living for years in the dark night, I had accumulated tension in the area. Still, my doctor was very surprise that I got rid of this problem and stopped my medication. Stress can impact negatively pretty much all our organs so even if we leave the supranormal out, there is definitely a host of disease that can go away when stress and tension go away.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.



Yes, I just want to confirm that Goenka body scanning can indeed have this kind of effect, at least with regards to emotion-related discomfort like feelings from anxiety.

I have a similar experience to you but it happens to be the opposite, where a problem arose for me due to stress. For a few months I have noticed more acne appearing on my face than in months prior, and I also sweat a lot more and stain my white v-neck t-shirts. Not life threatening problems, just minor inconveniences that I've picked up on. I think these things are caused by stress and my poor reaction to the DN. For a while I have been dealing with it poorly by pretty much fighting it. Recently though, surrender and acceptance have made everything much better.

I've asked Daniel this a few times, since he has easy access to all the jhanas and is a doctor. His answer is basically no, nothing is available to him that can be used to help diagnose or heal people.

However there are people who can heal energetically, so maybe research them and see what you find. A guy called Eric Pearl has been studied extensively by scientific methods. He's an ex-chiropractor in California.... now if that doesn't put you off!!....
But his patients report seeing and hearing unusual and otherworldly colours and music when being treated. They also see visions, receive messages, speak in tongues and so on. His book is worth a read. His courses I'm not sure about. Lots of marketing and hoo-ha surrounds it.

Also worth reading about Mesmer.

I had terrible chronic muscle pain along my spine starting when I was around 7 years old, and worsening steadily until by the age of 27 I could hardly hold a book. After stream entry the pain was dramatically reduced and never when back to pre-stream entry levels (although, I did have panic attacks for about a year and half after stream entry, so in the short term it was a bad trade off). Now, 4 years after stream entry my chronic pain is completely gone about 95% of the time, and when it does flare up a little meditation usually takes care of it. Another effect is that my flexibility in almost every joint in my body has increased steadily over the years without doing much conventional stretching or exercise at all. My sense of balance has improved dramatically as well; on the subway I hardly even think about holding onto something during the start and stop.

Yet, I've spoken with other meditators more advanced that me in terms of the path model who report none of these phenomena. I think it's really a matter of what fields of sensations one focuses on for vipassana and concentration practice. I use body sensations especially kinesthetic sensations (sensations of inner movement). I also had a pre-existing interest in developing these abilities because of suffering with chronic muscle pain all my life. Somebody who used tactile sensations (sensations of inner touch), or inner heat sensations, as their primary object would likely develop totally different abilities. For example, I'm not great at controlling my body temperature (subjective or objective) but I suspect that if I'd practised vipassana for years watching sensations of hot and cold, I've have gotten really good at it. I think that whatever objects one takes up in meditation one tends to become a master of the cause and effect stuff related to those objects.

Avi Craimer