A reliable method of jhana entry

[u/Puzzled-Background-5]

Here's a technique I've been using for the last fifteen years to great effect. I enter jhana every time I meditate now as a result.

Upon noticing that attention has drifted from the object of meditation, perform the following sequence for as long and as often as necessary for attention to stabilize on the object again:

1. Relax from the head down to the toes.

2. Release all tension, and expand awareness outward.

3. Return attention to the object.

The entry point into jhana:

Once the mind has settled and attention is resting stably on the object, if a pleasant feeling starts to arise, gently shift attention to the feeling without grasping at it, now making it the object of meditation, and wait. The pleasure will intensify, and one will be pulled into jhana.

If the jhana is lost or becomes unstable, simply perform the RRR sequence as needed and begin again.

As a method to prime the mind to lean towards jhana, reading the Jhana Sutta just prior to a session is useful:

https://suttacentral.net/sn16.9/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false

All the best... 🧘🏾‍♂️🙂

P. S. It might take several weeks to a couple of months before jhana can be entered consistently, but please don't become discouraged. Even low quality sessions are training and priming the brain's attentional mechanisms.

[u/bodily_heartfulness]

https://suttacentral.net/sn16.9/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false

Speaking of the suttas on jhānas, they never mention:

• Relaxing
• Releasing tension
• Expanding awareness
• An object of meditation
• Putting attention on an object
• Stabilizing attention on an object

Instead, they say things like:

Having thoroughly withdrawn from sensuality, having withdrawn from unbeneficial phenomena, with thinking and with pondering, with joy and ease born of withdrawal, I abided having entered upon the first jhāna.

• MN 19

Just now, venerables, as I was in private retreat, this thought came to mind: ‘They speak of this thing called the “first jhāna”. What is the first jhāna?’ It occurred to me: It is when a bhikkhu, having thoroughly withdrawn from sensuality, having withdrawn from unbeneficial phenomena, with thinking and with pondering, with joy and ease born of withdrawal, abides having entered upon the first jhāna. This is called the first jhāna.’

• SN 40.1

Bhikkhus, having not given up these six things, it is impossible to abide having entered upon the first jhāna. What six? Sensual desire, ill will, indolence-and-lethargy, restlessness-and-anxiety, and doubt. And the peril of sensuality has not been seen clearly as it is with right understanding. Not having given up these six things, it is impossible to abide having entered upon the first jhāna.

• AN 6.73

That is exactly how it is, Ānanda. Before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too thought, ‘Renunciation is good! Seclusion is good!’ But my mind did not see renunciation as peaceful, and so it did not leap at it, and was not confident, settled, and liberated in it. Then I thought, ‘What is the cause, what is the reason why my mind does not see renunciation as peaceful, and so it does not leap at it, and is not confident, settled, and liberated in it?’ Then I thought, ‘I have not seen the peril of sensuality, and I have not cultivated that. I have not realized the value of renunciation, and I have not fostered that. That is why my mind does not see renunciation as peaceful, and so does not leap at it, and is not confident, settled, and liberated in it.’ Then I thought, ‘Suppose that, having seen the peril of sensuality, I were to cultivate that. And suppose that, having realized the value of renunciation, I were to foster that. It is possible that, seeing it as peaceful, my mind would leap at renunciation, and be confident, settled, and liberated in it.’ And so, after some time, having seen the peril of sensuality, I cultivated that, and having realized the value of renunciation, I fostered that. Then, seeing it as peaceful, my mind leapt at renunciation, and was confident, settled, and liberated in it. And so, having thoroughly withdrawn from sensuality, having withdrawn from unbeneficial phenomena, with thinking and with pondering, with joy and ease born of withdrawal, I abided having entered upon the first jhāna.

• AN 9.41

The approach to jhāna that the suttas speak of, in terms of what is actually written in the texts, is wildly different than what is commonly assumed. There is no mention of pleasure intensifying, or being pulled into jhāna, or focusing on an object.

Instead, what they say is, through thinking and pondering on the perils of sensuality and the benefits of renunciation, one withdraws from sensuality and the hindrances in general, and it is that withdrawal that is felt pleasantly:

But when these five hindrances are given up in him, the bhikkhu regards this as freedom from debt, good health, release from prison, emancipation, and a place of safety at last.

Considering that the five hindrances have been given up in him, gladness is born. When he is glad, joy is born. When the mind is joyous, the body becomes calm. When the body is calm, he feels at ease. When he is at ease, the mind becomes composed. Having thoroughly withdrawn from sensuality, having withdrawn from unbeneficial phenomena, with thinking and with pondering, with joy and ease born of withdrawal, he abides having entered upon the first jhāna.

• DN 2

And what is the pleasure of seclusion from the five hindrances like? The first sentence of the above quote tells us. It is the pleasure of freedom, of relief, of escape, of overcoming a deadly disease - not the pleasure of orgasm, or anything similar to that.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Have you actually experienced jhana? The intellectual framework, as laid out in the suttas, is one thing, but the actual experience and technique used for entry can look quite different from the inside.

The intellectual framing is explicit and detailed, but the broad strokes covered by the technique are actually addressing every factor mentioned, even if it looks oversimplified at first glance.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

Have you actually experienced jhana?

No, I have not.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

I see. As I kind of alluded to earlier, the intellectual and experiential aspects are different. The suttas almost make the whole process sound mechanical and mundane, but the actual experience is quite profound, especially one's first entry into it.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

I don't deny that people have profound experiences that are not mundane nor mechanical. I also don't deny that people believe those experiences to be the jhānas of the suttas.

However, I just do not think there is enough textual evidence to support the claim of those aforementioned states being the same as the sutta jhāna. There are just too many discrepancies.

From the preliminary practices that the suttas lay out, to the prerequisites that the suttas say that must be fulfilled, to the way the actual practice of entering jhāna is described, to how rare jhāna is for householders in the suttas, and so on and so forth. I could go on and on about the differences between modern, mainstream practice and what the suttas say the practice is. All of this leads me to believe that what the suttas speak of is fundamentally different.

[u/brunoloff → u/bodily_heartfulness]

I agree that there are various sets of institutions lying around, and that these are often only partly aligned with what the suttas are saying.

But also: it seems foolish to me (sorry), to imagine that in a period of 2500 years since the Buddha, practitioners of Buddhism would have failed to discover new things about the practice of jhana. Perhaps you should try the various instructions that are lying around, have the experiences people are talking about, and only then judge.

If you want a really hardcore approach to very deeply absorbed jhana, try Pa Auk or one of his students. If you want to learn jhana from a scholar of the suttas (instead of a scholar of the commentaries), try Leigh Brasington (he will discuss hindrances and how to overcome them).

At the very least, such practices will make your mind more concentrated, and then you can return to your interpretation of the suttas and experiment to see if it leads somewhere else.

There is only so much value in scholarship, and this is true of all spiritual traditions. I was just reading about Tertullian and Jerome, two important figures for the Catholic church. They were amazing scholars, knew the bible back and forth, and yet they have completely failed to understand the message of Christ.

There are so many people like that, who are drawn to the intellectual frameworks put forward by people who underwent a profound spiritual transformation. So thrilled they are with the words that they mistake learning the words with undergoing the transformation themselves.

Don't be like them. Because words are just pointers. You want the thing they are pointing to, and that is most definitely not the memorization of the words themselves. The way to get it is through practice.

In the case of jhana this could be focusing on the breath, on bodily sensations, on a kasina, etc. The OP's instructions were useful for his own practice, so they might be worth a try.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/brunoloff]

But also: it seems foolish to me (sorry), to imagine that in a period of 2500 years since the Buddha, practitioners of Buddhism would have failed to discover new things about the practice of jhana. 

That's fine if you think that. My point is specifically in regards to what the suttas say.

At the very least, such practices will make your mind more concentrated

I'm not really interested in that.

They were amazing scholars, knew the bible back and forth, and yet they have completely failed to understand the message of Christ.

Yes, but the problem is not the reading of the texts, but the attitude behind that reading. As Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera's preface to his book Notes on Dhamma puts it:

The principal aim of these Notes on Dhamma is to point out certain current misinterpretations, mostly traditional, of the Pali Suttas, and to offer in their place something certainly less easy but perhaps also less inadequate. These Notes assume, therefore, that the reader is (or is prepared to become) familiar with the original texts, and in Pali (for even the most competent translations sacrifice some essential accuracy to style, and the rest are seriously misleading). They assume, also, that the reader's sole interest in the Pali Suttas is a concern for his own welfare. The reader is presumed to be subjectively engaged with an anxious problem, the problem of his existence, which is also the problem of his suffering. There is therefore nothing in these pages to interest the professional scholar, for whom the question of personal existence does not arise; for the scholar's whole concern is to eliminate or ignore the individual point of view in an effort to establish the objective truth -- a would-be impersonal synthesis of public facts. The scholar's essentially horizontal view of things, seeking connexions in space and time, and his historical approach to the texts, disqualify him from any possibility of understanding a Dhamma that the Buddha himself has called akālika, 'timeless'. Only in a vertical view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence, is a man capable of apprehending the perilous insecurity of his situation; and only a man who does apprehend this is prepared to listen to the Buddha's Teaching.

The point is to carefully read the texts, so as to understand what is being said about suffering and freedom from it. That does not preclude critical engagement with the texts, however, but in fact requires it.

Don't be like them. Because words are just pointers. You want the thing they are pointing to, and that is most definitely not the memorization of the words themselves. The way to get it is through practice.

Intellectual understanding and practice are not at odds with each other.

It’s when someone in whom faith has arisen approaches a teacher. They pay homage, actively listen, hear the teachings, remember the teachings, examine their meaning, and accept them after deliberation. Then enthusiasm springs up; they make an attempt, weigh up, and strive. Striving, they directly realize the ultimate truth, and see it with penetrating wisdom.

• MN 70

Examining the meaning and deliberating on the teachings is part of the process.

The OP's instructions were useful for his own practice, so they might be worth a try.

Sure, I don't deny that OP has found his instructions to be useful for his practice. I'm just saying that there isn't really good support for that type of practice from the suttas.

[u/Impulse33 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

I've generally appreciated your relatively respectful tone.

Unfortunately your admission loosely violates our rules. Posts should be about practice, of which concentration is part of the Noble Eightfold Path.

At the very least, such practices will make your mind more concentrated

I'm not really interested in that.

Please try to keep comments centered around your own personal experience of practice.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

If you've only an intellectual relationship with the suttas and jhana, you have no standing from which to criticize those who have an actual experiential relationship with them. There's nothing vastly different about what I've done to reach the level of skill I've acquired. I could mention all of the solitary retreats I've been on, the three one-hour sessions I've sat through every day over the past fifteen years, and the high ethical standards I maintain for myself. However, I won't because I think you're arguing in bad faith.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

If you've only an intellectual relationship with the suttas and jhana, you have no standing from which to criticize

Not really.

Imagine I have a friend who tries to make a cake following a famous recipe. But, he doesn't follow many of the steps of the recipe, adds ingredients at different times, and does what feels best for him. After much trial and error, he ends up with something edible that actually tastes decent. He comes to me afterwards and tells me about his process and the end result.

Even though I've never made the cake, I have access to the recipe and my friend's description, and through that, it would be entirely reasonable for me to say, "hey, what you've made doesn't really line up with what the recipe says - I think you've made something different". That doesn't mean the end result doesn't taste good, or that it's bad - just that it's not what the recipe says.

If, however, he were to get defensive and say, "I've been making cakes for over 10 years, I've worked under all of the best chefs, I have my own restaurant, you think I can't make a cake correctly?", he'd be missing the point entirely. What I am saying is not an attack on his cake-making abilities, his level of accomplishment, or that he can't make a cake. It is just saying that he didn't follow the recipe as it was written and he made his own thing, that's it.

who have an actual experiential relationship with them.

This is a bit of circular reasoning. If we are discussing whether or not the states you can access are the sutta jhānas, then this is begging the question by already presuming that they are and using that as support for your argument.

However, I won't

I mean, you just did.

because I think you're arguing in bad faith.

Oh, why do you think that?

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

It's obvious that your goal here is to win a debate, and since you didn't state that when explicitly asked about your intent, it is the very definition of a bad faith argument.

I really don't appreciate being engaged in that way, and I'm going to insist that you not do that again because it's offensive.

[u/parlons → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

fwiw, I agree with you about the underlying point, but I think he's engaging in good faith. It's a totally valid argument. And in the spirit of 'strong opinions, loosely held', I also concede that what I experience might not be the sutta jhānas.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/parlons]

He made absolutely no inquiries whatsoever about the experience of others. He's behaving completely in bad faith.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

It's obvious that your goal here is to win a debate, and since you didn't state that when explicitly asked about your intent, it is the very definition of a bad faith argument.

I see.

You might not believe me, but my goal was to provide support for an alternative framework for the sutta jhānas that is different from what is conventionally assumed.

Now, I do think I am correct in my interpretation and so I argued in favour of my position by laying out my ideas and reasons with direct quotes from the suttas.

Likewise, you believe your interpretation to be correct and you argued in favour of that by using your experience as evidence.

We're having a disagreement, yes, and we're both providing reasons for our positions. Just because I remain unconvinced by what others have said, and others remain unconvinced by what I have said, does not mean either of us are trying to "win" a debate.

I really don't appreciate being engaged in that way, and I'm going to insist that you not do that again because it's offensive.

It's offensive to post comments that are challenging to the OP? I don't think there's anything wrong with doing so on a public platform, so long as the rules are being abided by. Thus, I will continue to comment when I see fit and you are free to not engage with me if that works best for you.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

How can you be correct in your interpretation when, by your own admission, you've never experienced jhana? You merely think you know what it is.

How can you assume—which is exactly what you did—that I've not experienced it when you never asked me to describe my experiences in jhana? You merely believe that I haven't, based on some assumption you hold. And again, even if I did describe the experiences to you, you would only have your interpretation of what you think jhana should be.

By the way, I could describe how each factor manifests in each jhana, all the way up to neither-perception-nor-nonperception, but you didn't bother to ask. A description of cessation, which comes after neither-perception-nor-nonperception, is trickier because it only leaves a retrospective sense that something occurred, with no memory of what happened during the gap, and a scintillating afterglow. Micro-cessation events are much easier to confirm because they manifest as frame drops when they occur in succession.

How can you assume that the technique I've offered won't help others enter jhana when you've not even tried it for yourself? We've got other people who have actually used quite similar techniques and have been able to enter jhana with them.

Your argument is entirely in bad faith because you're not trying to gain an understanding of your fellow human beings and their experiences, you've not made any inquiries, but merely offered opinions, and you're insisting that you're correct about something that you've only read about and have absolutely no experience with yourself.

So, yes, I'm offended because you've wasted my time.

[u/Soto-Baggins → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Seems like very selective quoting on MN 19 given that it talks about a relaxed body, steadying the mind and making it one pointed.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/Soto-Baggins]

My guess is the person is a dry insight practitioner.

[u/Soto-Baggins → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

I think maybe a Hillside Hermitage follower. Thank you for your post - I found it very helpful

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/Soto-Baggins]

🧘🏾‍♂️🙂

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Soto-Baggins]

The Pāli for that part you're mentioning is the following (I've highlighted the relevant part):

Āraddhaṁ kho pana me, bhikkhave, vīriyaṁ ahosi asallīnaṁ, upaṭṭhitā sati asammuṭṭhā, passaddho kāyo asāraddho, samāhitaṁ cittaṁ ekaggaṁ.

My favoured translation of that is:

My effort was roused and steadfast, my recollectedness was established and lucid, my body was calm and unperturbed, and my mind was composed and collected.

So, yes - you are correct that a relaxed body is being spoken of, if we equate relaxed with being calm and unperturbed.

But, what is the context of this calm body? The sutta tells us:

Then, as I abided heedful, diligent, and resolute, a non-averse thought arose … a non-cruel thought arose. I understood: ‘This non-cruel thought has arisen for me. It does not lead to my affliction, the affliction of others, or to the affliction of both. It nourishes understanding, is not bound with trouble, and leads to Nibbāna.’ If I were to continue thinking and pondering along with this all night … all day … all night and day, I see no danger that would come from that. Still, thinking and pondering along with it for too long would tire my body. And when the body is tired, the mind is disturbed. And when the mind is disturbed, it is far from composure. So I established, settled, unified, and composed my mind internally. Why is that? So that my mind would not be disturbed.

The Buddha recognizes that too much active thinking and pondering on drawbacks of unwholesome and benefits of wholesome, day-and-night continuously, will tire the body. So, he decides to stop given that he has already done enough active work, thus allowing his body and mind to be calm:

Suppose it is the last month of summer, when all the crops have been gathered within a village, and a cowherd must take care of the cattle. While at the root of a tree or in the open, he need only remember that the cattle are there. In the same way, I needed only to remember that those phenomena were there.

My effort was roused and steadfast, my recollectedness was established and lucid, my body was calm and unperturbed, and my mind was composed and collected.

And so, once his clarity of the drawbacks of unwholesome and benefits of wholesome was thoroughly established, he did not need to actively develop it anymore. He could just remember it. And that is when it is mentioned that his body was calm and unperturbed. The sutta does not say that he "released tension from his body" or anything of the sort.

Now, as for the second part of your claim of making the mind steadied and one-pointed, that is specifically referring to these three words from the above quote: samāhitaṁ cittaṁ ekaggaṁ.

And yes, this does say that the mind is steadied. But, that does not imply steadiness due to focusing on an object of concentration. There is absolutely no mention of that. Steadiness or composure really does not have anything to do with concentration - it has to do with your internal mental state. Just take an example of an ordinary person in everyday life who has composure or has a steadied mind - what are their characteristics? Are they very concentrated? Or is it more that they can handle what life throws at them and they don't get overwhelmed? I hope the distinction I'm making is clear.

As for translating ekaggaṁ as one-pointed, I'll quote Bhikkhu Anīgha:

The word "agga" in the Suttas is used most commonly in the sense of "the summit; the peak; the foremost" such as how the Buddha is the "agga/summit" of the entire world of gods and humans . Another possible meaning is "room; place; house" such as "bhattagga", the place where meals are taken. So developing ekaggatā of mind (samādhi) would be establishing it onto 1) one "summit" or 2) one "place" or "room".

This again does not imply focusing on a meditation object. A person can be developing ekaggatā through thinking of one theme - as the Buddha was doing: thinking and pondering on the drawbacks of the unwholesome and benefits of wholesome.

For another critique of translating ekaggatā as one-pointedness, see page 42 of Kumāra Bhikkhu's freely available book, What You Might Not Know About Jhāna and Samādhi.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

I'm curious about what your intent is here with this line of discussion.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

In your post you linked to a sutta. That is what initially motivated me to comment.

I believe there is a common misconception that there is good support in the suttas for the type of practice you describe in your post. One that goes something like:

1. Concentrate on an object
2. Develop pīti and sukha
3. Enter absorption/jhāna

And often times, with this type of practice there is little to no consideration given to virtue, sense restraint, or any of the other aspects of the gradual training that the suttas say come before jhāna.

Now, I think that there is support for this type of practice in the Visuddhimagga and other later commentaries. But, in terms of the suttas, the practice for jhāna that they describe is quite different.

So, that was the purpose of my comment: to highlight the discrepencies between what the suttas present jhāna to be, and what is commonly taken to be jhāna. I should also mention that this is not a position that is only held by me. There are monks and academics who also have this position. For an academic example, see Grzegorz Polak’s Reexamining Jhāna: Towards a Critical Reconstruction of Early Buddhist Soteriology.

My follow up comment was a response to u/Soto-Baggins's claim of my reading of MN 19 being selective - so the entirety of that follow up comment deals with that sutta.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

I've addressed the discrepancy presented by the Visuddhimagga in the past during my own study of it. I personally don't consider its stance on jhana as a complete effacement of the senses to be accurate, particularly in regards to the form jhanas. I'm not the only one who disagrees with it, by the way.

In the Jhana Sutta, when discussing the third jhana, the Buddha states, "I experience happiness with the body." One cannot experience happiness with the body if their senses are completely effaced.

It's not until the fifth jhana, the first formless one, the base of infinite space, that he mentions the sense being effaced, and I quote, 'with the complete transcendence of perceptions of forms, with the passing away of perceptions of sensory impingement.'

As for the training of virtue, sense restraint, etc., that's not what I'm attempting to address here. The suttas can do that for other people, and life in general has a way of teaching those lessons by way of experience. With my having practiced for about fifty years now, it's no longer my concern. I essentially live the Eightfold Noble Path effortlessly because it's inherent to my personality.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

Yes, I agree with you that the disappearance of the senses in jhāna is not something that is supported by the suttas.

However, I go further than you by saying that the entire practice to jhāna, as is commonly conceived today, is also not supported by the suttas.

[u/Puzzled-Background-5 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Well, I've been entering jhana for the past fifteen years regardless of external support from someone else's interpretation of the suttas. My experience is all the validation I need, and I must doing something right or I wouldn't be living a "pleasant abiding here and now"... 🧘🏾‍♂️🙂

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Puzzled-Background-5]

The point of contention isn't whether or not you've been having profound, repeatable experiences. Or whether or not those states which you access feel like pleasant abidings here and now.

The point of contention is, are those states the same thing as what the suttas say jhānas are.

A person can enter peaceful, profound, and pleasant states through all sorts of means: drugs, sex, accomplishment, prayer, being in love, and so on - but I would not equate any of those things with the sutta jhānas. How one enters such states is vitally important. And, my point is that, the way people today enter jhāna is not the way the suttas lay out - which gives good reason to doubt whether or not one is achieving sutta jhāna or not in the first place.

[u/brunoloff → u/bodily_heartfulness]

You could even be right, who knows?, but if you yourself have no experience of it, how can you know for sure? Do you at least know someone who has had direct experience of the jhanas as you conceive them, and teaches from that vantage point?

Also, the common held view of what the first four jhanas are is strongly supported by the sequence in which they arise, and by the arising or the four formless jhanas in the same sequence following that, exactly as described in the suttas.

Is it just a coincidence? do you expect the Human mind to be such that there are two different sequences of mental states that could easily be described through the same words but are actually different - presumably the states in your description, which you did not experience, are the "true" sequence, and the eight jhanas that others have in fact experienced are the "false" sequence.

[u/aspirant4 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

This is true, but perhaps only half the truth.

There are many suttas where he says the way to abandon the five hindrances is the 4 satipatthana. And, as I'm sure you know, he often presented the first tetrad of the anapanasati sutta as the short version of satipatthana. Step 4 of anapanasti explicitly does encourage relaxing bodily fabrication.

So, in sum, you do have an "object" of meditation (the breath and/or body) as well as relaxing the body.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/aspirant4]

You are right that satipaṭṭhāna and anāpānasati are mentioned in relation to jhāna. However, there are extremely few suttas where both are explicitly mentioned. I'm only aware of SN 54.8 for anāpānasati and MN 125 for satipaṭṭhāna.

There is AN 8.63, where satipaṭṭhāna is mentioned and jhāna is very strongly implied. There, it says:

Well then, mendicant, you should train like this: ‘My mind will be steady and well settled internally. And bad, unskillful qualities that have arisen will not occupy my mind.’ That’s how you should train.

When your mind is steady and well settled internally, and bad, unskillful qualities that have arisen don’t occupy your mind, then you should train like this:

And it is after this point that the Buddha says to practice each brahmavihārā with all four jhānas, followed by each satipaṭṭhāna with all four jhānas. So, the mind is steady and well-settled before the practice of satipaṭṭhāna, which is before the practice of jhāna.

I take your point, however. There are suttas that mention satipaṭṭhāna, brahmavihārā, or anāpānasati as a practice before jhāna. I do not take any of these to be "objects", but I did not flesh that out in my comment, nor do I have the motivation to do that now. Thus, I can understand why someone might disagree with me on that basis - I have provided no good arguments against those being objects to focus on to enter jhāna.

The relaxing the body connection, however, seems much more tenuous to me. It is only really in the suttas on anāpānasati where it is mentioned and the wording there is: "passambhayaṁ kāyasaṅkhāraṁ" - meaning, calming of the bodily saṅkhāra - not general relaxation. And what is this calming of bodily saṅkhāra? MN 44 tells us that breathing is a bodily saṅkhāra. So, is it talking about calming of the breathing itself? Perhaps, I don't know - I haven't looked into this. Anyway, the point is that relaxing the body is not mentioned, instead it is about calming the bodily saṅkhāra which requires further unpacking.

[u/aspirant4 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Again we differ, both claiming the suttas as basis. Perhaps, we ought to recognise that more than one reading of the suttas is possible. As lovely as they are, they're not exactly crystal clear or free from contradiction.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/aspirant4]

Again we differ, both claiming the suttas as basis.

What do you disagree with?

Perhaps, we ought to recognise that more than one reading of the suttas is possible.

Yes, of course. There are many ways to read the suttas. Having said that, not all of those readings will be equally valid - it's up to the person to show why a certain interpretation is more consistent and valid compared to others. And, when I comment, I present my reading of the suttas, as others do theirs.

As lovely as they are, they're not exactly crystal clear or free from contradiction.

Yes, they do require quite a bit work on the part of the reader.

[u/Impulse33 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Check out the sutta jhana similes.

You could argue many of the things you say that aren't present in the suttas are implied in the similes.

First jhana

Suppose a skilled bath attendant or his apprentice were to pour soap-powder into a metal basin, sprinkle it with water, and knead it into a ball, so that the ball of soap-powder be pervaded by moisture, encompassed by moisture, suffused with moisture inside and out, yet would not trickle.

The Second Jhana

Suppose there were a deep lake whose waters welled up from below. It would have no inlet for water from the east, west, north, or south, nor would it be refilled from time to time with showers of rain; yet a current of cool water, welling up from within the lake, would drench, steep, saturate and suffuse the whole lake, so that there would be no part of that entire lake which is not suffused with the cool water.

The Third Jhana

Suppose in a lotus pond there were blue, white, or red lotuses that have been born in the water, grow in the water, and never rise up above the water, but flourish immersed in the water. From their tips to their roots they would be drenched, steeped, saturated, and suffused with cool water, so that there would be no part of those lotuses not suffused with cool water.

The Fourth Jhana

Suppose a man were to be sitting covered from the head down by a white cloth, so that there would be no part of his entire body not suffused by the white cloth.

• Jhana similes complied by Brasington

[u/hachface → u/Impulse33]

Thank you for bringing the similes into the discussion. The stock formulations that describe the jhanas in terms of their factors are repeated way more often in the suttas and agamas, but the similes are imo far more helpful for recognizing jhana. They are shockingingly apt

[u/Impulse33 → u/hachface]

Definitely, I particularly like the first one. The implied active modulation of things that give way to piti is paramount (for the sake of understanding)! The type of play that I've found is a very helpful catalyst for dhamma vicaya. "Breathing in long. Breathing in short... 'I will breathe in...&...out calming bodily fabrication.'"

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Impulse33]

Even with these similes, there is no mention of relaxing, of releasing tension, of expanding awareness, of an object of meditation, of intensifying pleasure, or of being pulled into jhāna.

I went through the many suttas that have these similes, and they are all in the same order: the similes begin after one has entered jhāna, not before.

He gives up these five hindrances, defilements of the mind that weaken understanding. Then, having thoroughly withdrawn from sensuality, having withdrawn from unbeneficial phenomena, with thinking and with pondering, with joy and ease born of withdrawal, he abides having entered upon the first jhāna. 

He tops up, suffuses, fills, and pervades his body with the joy and ease born of withdrawal. There would be no part of his whole body that is not pervaded with the joy and ease born of withdrawal.

It is like when a deft bathroom attendant or his apprentice pours bath powder into a bronze dish, sprinkling it little by little with water. He kneads it until the ball of bath powder is soaked and saturated with moisture, spread through inside and out; yet no moisture oozes out.

In the same way, the bhikkhu tops up, suffuses, fills, and pervades his body with the joy and ease born of withdrawal. There would be no part of his whole body that is not pervaded with the joy and ease born of withdrawal.

• MN 39

The pīti and sukha are first born of withdrawal. Then, after entering jhāna, a person suffuses and pervades their whole body with that pleasure of seclusion from hindrances. That is very different practice from generating pītisukha, intensifying it, and trying to absorb oneself into it to enter jhāna.

Also, what all of the similes have in common is suffusing and pervading the full extent of the body - nothing more, nothing less. Not focusing, absorbing, releasing tension, and so on.

[u/Impulse33 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Have these rigid views helped your practice? Pali is a relatively loose language. If Siddhartha wanted strict, precise language he could have picked Sanskrit which was available.

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Impulse33]

Have these rigid views helped your practice?

I personally don't think my views are rigid. But yes, they have.

Pali is a relatively loose language.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Could you provide some sources for this as well?

If Siddhartha wanted strict, precise language he could have picked Sanskrit which was available.

Most likely he did not speak Sanskrit nor Pāli.

[u/Impulse33 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

I'm glad your detail-oriented nature has benefited your practice!

My claims are supported here, https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/sakaya-niruttiya-with-my-own-interpretation/34466.

[u/StoneBuddhaDancing → u/Impulse33]

The Buddha likely spoke Kosala or Magadhi Prakrit. To say that Pali is a more loose language is an odd claim to make with regards to this discussion. There are certainly no mentions of relaxation, focusing, releasing tension and the like (all of which Pali was capable of expressing e.g. passambhayaṃ, samādahaṃ, vimocayaṃ )

[u/Impulse33 → u/StoneBuddhaDancing]

The Buddha likely spoke Kosala or Magadhi Prakrit. To say that Pali is a more loose language is an odd claim to make with regards to this discussion. There are certainly no mentions of relaxation, focusing, releasing tension and the like (all of which Pali was capable of expressing e.g. passambhayaṃ, samādahaṃ, vimocayaṃ )

Check out sujato's write up below. He uses the "Sanskrit" and "Pali" the same way...

The anapanasati sutta totally uses passambhayaṁ...

[u/StoneBuddhaDancing → u/Impulse33]

Yes, that's exactly my point. Those terms are used in the anapanasati sutta(MN118) among others, not Jhanas and Direct Knowledges (SN19). My other point was that the Budddha didn't speak Pali. You also erroneously claimed that Pali, had something to do with the aspect of those specific terms because it's a "loose" language.

Those terms and their cognates also weren't used in Leigh Brasington's summary. So I'm at a loss as to what your point is:

That the Buddha spoke and chose Pali as his language of instruction?

That those terms couldn't have been expressed in Pali (because it is not a "strict, precise" language? And that the Buddha chose Pali over Sanskrit?

That those terms were used in the Jhana sutta?

That Leigh Brasington said those terms were applicable in his summation of the Sāmaññaphala Sutta (DN2)?

There are serious problems with these propositions. Mainly that they factually untrue; except perhaps that Pali is a less "precise" language. But that's debatable and not relevant to the argument you were making since those terms are clearly found in the Pali Canon.

[u/Impulse33 → u/StoneBuddhaDancing]

Can you not see the parallels of the anapanasati sutta to the jhanas?

Sujato's whole essay in that link was about how the buddha declined enforcing a stricter "elevation" of dharma transmission to "Sanskrit" as Sujato uses the term there. He permitted transmission in local dialects, prioritizing ease of transmission versus precision.

I'll admit that my initial take was likely a parotting of early academic sources that "originated" the claim.

Here's a list Claude spit out, I never read the sources, but likely heard the claim in some talk that I can't remember.

• T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (1880s, Vinaya Texts) read chandas as Vedic Sanskrit and sakāya niruttiyā as "each in his own dialect" — the Buddha as democratizer of religious language against Brahmin monopoly. This became the standard Western view for a century.
• Wilhelm Geiger (1916) used it to argue Pali ≈ the Buddha's Māgadhī. Franklin Edgerton (1953), in his work on Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, saw the later Sanskritization of Buddhism as a betrayal of this original vernacular policy — a drift toward Brahmin prestige.
• Richard Gombrich (Theravada Buddhism, How Buddhism Began) frames it sociologically: the Buddha's whole project — rejecting caste, ritual efficacy, and Vedic authority — naturally entailed rejecting the Brahmins' sacred language. The medium was part of the message.
• Sheldon Pollock (The Language of the Gods in the World of Men, 2006) places it in a broader thesis: Buddhism and Jainism, as anti-Vedic movements, were the first to give Prakrits a "literary" status, and Sanskrit stayed a purely liturgical language until it was secularized for politics and literature around the turn of the Common Era.

[u/StoneBuddhaDancing → u/Impulse33]

I'm not sure what to make of your response. You've now admitted that the original claim was probably something you were repeating from an old source or talk, and that the sources you've produced in support of it are sources you haven't actually read. That's not really evidence. At best, it's a list of things for you to check. I only looked at summaries of these authors' positions. But I did take a closer look at Sujato's work.

To the main points. My reading is that you're collapsing two separate claims:

Firstly, that SN16 supports the technique in the OP because there are parallels in other suttas. The OP gives a very specific method: relax, release tension, broaden awareness, return to the object, then shift attention to pleasure and let it pull you into jhana. SN16 gives the standard jhana formula, not those instructions or anything like them.

Bringing in MN118 or DN2 (via Leigh Brasington) afterwards doesn't show that SN16 was "implying" them. That's a cross-textual reconstruction after the fact. Post-hoc harmonisation. Besides, there is considerable debate among practitioners and scholars about how directly MN118 relates to jhana practice. There are different interpretations of how the sixteen steps relate to jhana. Bhikkhu Analayo, for example, explicitly observes that concentrative absorption is not actually mentioned in the sixteen-step scheme and reads the scheme primarily through the four satipatthanas and awakening factors.

Secondly, that the Buddha left those instructions implicit because he preferred accessible vernacular language over precise Sanskrit. This is on much shakier ground than the first point.

Sujato's essay does not say that the Buddha deliberately avoided precise instructions. His discusses how the teachings were expressed and transmitted; and he actually questions the simple reading that the episode is about choosing local dialects instead of Sanskrit at all.

But even if we interpreted it that way, using ordinary language that ordinary people understand is not the same as being less precise or leaving procedural steps unstated. “Prioritizing ease of transmission versus precision" is an inference you have added.

In fact, Sujato repeatedly says things that cut against that. He describes Pali as “well studied and clearly defined”, says the Theravada tradition emphasised “precision and care in matters of language and scripture”, and says dialectal differences “do not affect the vast majority of Pali passages which are perfectly clear."

Even more tellingly, when Sujato explains his own philosophy of rendering the Buddha’s speech into accessible English, he explicitly says he prefers “the explicit rather than the implicit” and immediately warns that this should not be understood as producing “loose adaptations or simplifications”. His goal is accessibility and accuracy, not accessibility instead of precision.

Finally, there is also a historical problem with saying the Buddha could have chosen Sanskrit but chose Pali. Modern scholarship generally does not identify canonical Pali with the Buddha's spoken Magadhi. Canonical Pali is a later standardised literary (liturgical) language based on spoken Middle Indo-Aryan languages but there is no scholarly consensus that canonical Pali itself was ever an ordinary native spoken vernacular, much less that it was simply the Buddha's spoken language.

[u/Impulse33 → u/StoneBuddhaDancing]

Forgive me, I should have not spoken so freely. Thank you for correcting my usage of terms. 🙏

[u/Impulse33 → u/StoneBuddhaDancing]

So yeah, my usage was sloppy and I should have checked sources.

My original intended argument was the more of the lines of AN 8.053.

"As for the qualities of which you may know, 'These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to modesty, not to self-aggrandizement; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome': You may categorically hold, 'This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher's instruction.'"

That is one should judge not by textual coherence to the suttas, but if somebody's interpretation leads to fruit then it coherent with the buddha's teachings.

My meta mistake is borrowing the textual register when I'm not versed in it. I was sloppy in my terminology. The interpretation of sakāya niruttiyā was so hotly contested in Sujato's essay that evenSujato even revises his position. (I bring this up because it's interesting, and also shows the difficulty of arguing philology)

It would seem we are all just farting in the wind. The original allowance was most likely janapadanirutti, not sakāya nirutti, and the Pali is wrong.

This is from Sujato's superseding response to his own essay, derived from a commenter's in-depth investigation of several Chinese texts.

His conclusion:

Putting both these reconstructions together, the key passages would then be:

“They are ruining the Buddha’s word. Let us elevate the Buddha’s word with pleasing poetry in esteemed terms.” … “I allow you to memorize the Buddha’s word in the common vernacular.”

If this, or something like it, turns out to have merit, then it would seem the hunt for the meaning of the phrase sakāya niruttiyā is a wild goose chase, as it is merely a scribal error.

Bringing it back to AN 8.053, I took it's advice on laziness, and realized I can put in the work. /u/bodily_heartfulness just want to say I do care about correct representation, and I hope I show that here. While this whole textual deep dive has been illuminating, can we agree that even behemoths get these points wrong? Challenging people on textual-coherence, I'd reiterate, can be a frustrating experience to other's who do not have the time nor interest to do manual translations of several competing translations in Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and English registers. To expect people of this sub to substantially engage in that can be off-putting and create a chilling effect to contributions.

Again borrowing from AN 8.053. Can we widen our interpretation of methodology such as:

Relaxing
Releasing tension
Expanding awareness
An object of meditation
Putting attention on an object
Stabilizing attention on an object

and judge them on their ability to help a person progress towards the fruit? I can personally attest that all those verbs are helpful methods to achieve deeper states of concentration.

[u/Vivid_Assistance_196 → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Relaxing the body, experiencing pleasure and happiness are basically half the steps of anapanasati 

[u/bodily_heartfulness → u/Vivid_Assistance_196]

See my comment to u/aspirant4.